


Act One

by KaerWrites



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Retelling, F/M, M/M, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2018-06-01 06:23:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 36
Words: 98,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6504355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaerWrites/pseuds/KaerWrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leopold Hawke is a hard man. He sees what needs doing, and he gets it done - whatever the price, he'll gladly pay it if it means protecting the ones he loves. That price looks particularly steep when Hawke and his family arrive in Kirkwall in 9:30 Dragon. Hiding from the templars and eking out a living on the unforgiving streets of Lowtown, Hawke must learn to accept help from others before he tears himself apart. Carver Hawke has lived his life in his brother's shadow - a shadow that only seems to grow longer with each passing year. With the future of his family on the line, Carver is faced with the choice between brotherly loyalty and his own desires. (Canon retelling/novelization of the game's Act 1. This is a rewrite of a previous work.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> If this looks familiar, it's because it very well might be. For anyone who read the previous version of this fic, I hope you can accept my apologies for taking it down, and I hope you like this new version just as well, if not better. I'm much happier with what I'm doing with it now.

The laughter around the card table stopped when the newest stable hand entered the kitchen, pausing only long enough to shake the late spring snow from his hair like a great shaggy mabari. There was complete silence as he stomped snow and mud from his boots and removed his heavy coat to hang with the others by the door. The absence of the coat did little to take away from the sheer size of him – perhaps, Henri thought, he was more bear than mabari. Sturdy farm stock, faded red flannel stretched tight across shoulders that looked more than capable of bearing a plow harness all on their own, the fellows at the table avoided catching his eyes as he turned to warm his hands at the hearth.

Henri’s voice squeaked with an unmanful tremor when he attempted to summon it forth. He had to clear his throat twice before he could try again. “She give you any trouble today?”

It had only been a few months since the big bear of a man had come to work at the Slippery Toadstool. He was really too big and too old to be a stable boy, but the animals liked him more than the inn’s patrons. It hadn’t taken long for him to be given full responsibility of Nightmare, the owner’s ill-tempered prize racehorse. Henri had received enough bites, kicks, and various bruises from the bitch to know she was the very incarnation of evil itself.

His question hung in the air unanswered for a beat too long, chewed up and swallowed by the uneasy silence that permeated any room in which Leopold Hawke was present. There was simply something unsettling about the man, something unnatural that lurked behind that hard golden stare.

“No,” the man answered at last, and the silence, that invisible beast that prowled the room, raising the hairs on the arms of good Maker-fearing men, gobbled the single syllable up like a feastday turkey. A spark popped in the fire and several men nearly leapt from their seats. Hawke turned his big calloused hands over before the flames. “She was fine.”

Henri had to clear his throat again. “Cookie left a bowl of stew out for you,” he said, and felt a flash of alarm as those molten eyes turned on him. Maker, the man was unsettling. “P – probably cold by now. Care to, uh, you should – ah, you’ll want to warm it up. Probably. Yeah.”

“It’s fine,” he said shortly.

The silence prowled the room, traced the outlines of their souls like the cold crooked finger of death itself as he turned away, taking up his coat again, and the stew, and retreating back out into the flurry of spitting snow outside.

It seemed that they collectively released their breath. Yon, the inn’s errand boy and the youngest at the table, let loose a stressed little giggle.

“An apostate,” Jarl said, tossing down his cards and rolling his shoulders as if trying to remove a layer of filth. He was one of the Slippery Toadstool’s guards, frequently hired out to protect caravans as they passed through town, and he was easily a match in size for their resident stable boy, but after the first week he had carefully avoided making eye contact with Hawke. “I’m telling you, boys, on next month’s pay, that man’s an apostate, or I’m an Orlesian dandy.”

“You’re gonna have a tough time paying up next month’s pay when I’m about to win it from you right here,” Thom said. He worked in the stables with Hawke and Henri every day, though more and more often he seemed to find tasks to do somewhere else. He gathered up the cards and began to shuffle again.

“I’ve seen ‘em out in the yard with a mage’s staff!” Yon said.

“It’s a regular staff,” Thom almost sounded bored, yet he had been every bit as still and nervous as the rest of them, chewing on his mustaches and squirming like a well-spanked whore in Chantry service. “Farmers use them all the time to keep the wolves at bay. Your da probably owns one.”

“My da ain’t no apostate!” Yon’s face flushed red.

“No,” Thom agreed. “And neither is any man with shoulders like those.” He began to deal. Jarl took a long drink from his ration of ale.

“I knew a Templar once,” Jarl said darkly. “Taught me some things.”

“Like piss he did, Jarl,” Thom laughed. Jarl drank again.

“Mark my words, he’s an apostate,” he said. “Probably a blood mage. Consorts with demons.”

“Do you think he gets them to fuck him?” Yon asked.

“Henri wants to fuck him,” Thom chuckled.

Jarl ignored them. “I’m telling you,” he said. “He’s just waiting to feed our souls to the abyss. If we don’t act soon, he’ll take his chance and we’ll all be damned. See if we don’t.”

“I’m betting we don’t,” Thom said. He examined his cards, rearranging them. “Anyway,” he said. “Haven’t you been keeping up with what they’re saying in the streets? The king’s army is marching on darkspawn in the ruins up at Ostagar. Apostates are the least of our worries. Even the blood mage variety.”

“Henri,” Jarl leaned across the table, utterly serious. “Henri, he likes you…”

“Will you lot please stop!” Henri’s face felt like pure flame.

“If you distract him, I can run a test my Templar friend taught me.”

“There’s no such test, Jarl, he was pulling your dick on that one.”

“It won’t hurt him!” Jarl insisted.

“I said to leave me out of this madness!” Henri tried to laugh it off, but now Thom was looking at him speculatively. His heart was suddenly pounding.

“It would put the matter to rest,” Thom said, as if it were suddenly reasonable.

They managed to talk him into it with a handful of coppers and a share of their weekly ale rations. Henri told himself he would never have agreed to it if there was even a chance of Hawke being an apostate – it was a good way to ruin a man’s life, throwing around rumors like those – but he couldn’t shrug off a distinct feeling of guilt as he put on his coat and his boots and stepped out into the night.

“We’ll be right behind you,” Thom promised.

“Tell us what his dick looks like!” Yon called. His voice rang out, too loud in the cold, silent night. Henri waved him off.

A strong wind raised gooseflesh on the back of Henri’s neck, and he jumped at the sound of the inn sign clattering as it pitched back and forth so violently he could pick out the chipped green and orange paint on the wide umbrella of the mushroom on the street-facing side. The spitting snow had finally stopped, leaving portions of the yard alternatively powdered with white or brown with dead grass and stretches of mud. There was the distinct smell of something rotten on the air, and Henri had to work to keep his mind from thoughts of Blight and darkspawn. His lantern swung wildly as he hurried across the exposed expanse to the stables. He didn’t look for Jarl, who was supposed to be following, before he ducked into the stables.

He found Hawke in Nightmare’s stall, his big rough hands cupped, so uncharacteristically gentle as the mare nuzzled his palms. He was talking to her, quietly, hard voice pitched low – a picture of a completely different man than what Henri had come to expect.

She was nearly calm before she caught Henri’s scent, and, nostrils flaring suddenly, eyes rolling, she backed up a step. Hawke heeded her silent warning and dropped his hands. He backed from the stall and got the doors closed before she started kicking.

“Sorry!” Henri whispered quickly as he rounded on him, all towering, bearded mass, golden eyes and bulging muscles. He took an involuntary step back, and felt a moment as absolute horror as his boot landed in the bowl of mostly untouched stew on the floor. He overcompensated, stumbled, and fell. He cheeks burned in mortification.

“Henri,” Hawke said, and it wasn’t the gentle voice he had used on the horse, but something flatter, less patient, with a thin edge of danger, like ice rimming a frost bitten lake, and damn if it didn’t send pleasant little shivers up Henri’s spine. “Why are you here?”

Henri felt like blubbering. He hadn’t for a moment even considered Jarl’s wild ideas about an apostate blood mage mucking out the stables, but now, for the first time, the thought of _what if_ permeated his senses. The playful thought of seducing this man suddenly seemed nothing less than suicidal and yet he was still somehow curious. His heart hammered in his chest, so hard and so high he thought he choke on it.

Hawke sighed and shook his head, reaching with one of those large hands to haul Henri to his feet.

“Calm down,” Hawke said, and Henri broke out into a cold sweat. He jumped guiltily as Nightmare kicked her stall again.

“This – this was a mistake!” Henri said. Maker, those hands. Was the rest of him big too? “I’m sorry!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hawke said.

“I – !” a clatter of hoof beats in the yard halted Henri’s pitiful attempts at confession. He thought, for a moment, he spotted Jarl watching at the window. Hawke looked past him, then strode out into the yard, straight backed and full of purpose, as men begin to call loudly for the inkeep and lights flared within the Toadstool’s windows. Henri followed, pausing by the open stable doors.

“-en route to Denerim,” one of the men, a templar, was saying as Hawke, with his head bowed, quietly took his horse’s lead. The beast was lathered with exertion, flank heaving, and seemed ready to drop on the spot. The Templar hardly seemed to take note, addressing Josua, the inkeep, as soon as he appeared in the yard. “We require rooms for what’s left of the night, and don’t overcharge me.”

“At this hour, messere, what - ?”

“Ostagar has fallen, and the king is dead,” the Templar said. ”We’ve come from Lothering – it’s only a matter of days before they’re overrun, maybe a few weeks before they reach you here, if you’re lucky. If you have a shred of intelligence, you’ll start packing now.”

“You abandoned Lothering?” Hawke demanded suddenly, laying a hand on the templar’s shoulder.

The templar looked ready to scold the impertinent stable boy for his tone, but when he turned his head he met the broad expanse of the other man’s chest and shoulders and he quickly rethought his position.

“Little point in throwing our lives away defending something that’s already lost,” he said, uncomfortably shaking off the offending hand. He turned back to Josua, who was gaping and wringing his hands, and he seemed to miss the moment when Hawke dropped his horse’s lead and turned to stalk back to the stables.

Henri scrambled to get out of his way, staring as he began to take down Nightmare’s tack.

“What are you doing?” Henri asked. But he didn’t need to. He recalled the man’s cold fury, weeks ago, on receiving word of a brother signing up for the king’s army, leaving their mother and sister in Lothering. Henri could read well enough, as long as the words weren’t too big, and he had caught a peek at the letter while Hawke was out on an errand. _You think you’re the only one who gets to leave, to have a life?_ he remembered reading. _I’ll make my name at Ostagar. Enjoy your horse shit._

Henri scrambled quickly up the ladder to the loft Hawke called home. It didn’t take long to gather the man’s belongings – shaving kit, handful of flannel shirts, stack of correspondence, a purse heavy with every copper he’d saved since coming to work at the Toadstool. Henri only hesitated over the staff, wondered again about Jarl’s wild theories.

It felt like cold, normal wood gripped in his palm.

Hawke was quiet for a long moment when Henri brought him his things, and he stared with an unreadable expression that made Henri itch until Hawke at last accepted the bundle and lashed his staff to the back of his horse.

Hawke only hesitated a moment before he said, “Here,” and tossed Henri the purse with very little sign of regret. There was even a trace of humor to his lips. “Give it to Josua for the horse,” he explained. “And if there’s any left, use it to get out of town. Don’t wait too long, understand?”

“But what about you?” Henri asked.

Hawke grunted as he pulled himself up into Nightmare’s gleaming saddle. “What about me?”

“You’re going to Lothering?”

“I wouldn’t recommend that.”

Henri nearly tripped over his own feet, getting out of his way, and clutched the purse to his chest as he watched him ride through the yard, scattering templars like flies brushed from a bull’s backside. In the chaos he created, Hawke was gone in moments.

Henri nearly screamed when Jarl’s hand clamped down on his shoulder. Yon and Thom were there, too, bundled for the cold and each carrying satchels full to bursting with pilfered loot from the kitchens.

“He paid for Nightmare,” Henri said, slightly stunned, even as Jarl lifted the purse from his arms and peeked inside. He showed the contents to Thom.

“I think we can find a better use for the funds, my boy,” Thom said. “I hear Antiva is lovely this time of year.”


	2. Along the Imperial Highway

“Snow again,” Bexley said, though the flakes that fell from the gloomy grey sky might just as well have been ash. He expressed his disgust by hauling himself up to spit over the edge of the rickety cart they shared, the movement only marginally blanching him. The combination of the scowl on his face and the filthy field bandage wrapped around his head leant him a particularly ghoulish appearance, but the concern he could not conceal when he glanced back at his companion was genuine enough to be irritating. He gave a grunt of pain as he settled back into his former position, and he took the time to rearrange his cards before he said, as if offhand, “Might want to consider doubling up on socks before you make that walk, Hawke.”

Carver drew a card. Serpents. _Shit_. His voice was still rough from the smoke that had permeated the air at Ostagar, his limbs sore and thick and heavy, clumsy from exhaustion, but he managed to laugh as if the world itself didn’t reek of destruction and death.

“You nag like my sister, old man.”

What was left of Bexley’s brows rose. “The one with the big tits?” he asked, and put his hands up in defense when Carver chucked what was left of his lunch at him – a hard, stale biscuit with harder, staler cheese. Carver hadn’t been hungry, anyway. Everything tasked like ash, and he was particularly tired of being looked at like some fragile madman prone to hysterics at the slightest provocation. He was fine. Now.

“You leave my sister’s tits out of this,” he said.

“Heartless, denying a dying man his fantasies,” Bexley complained. There was a definite tremor to the hand that reached to draw a card, and his nails were beginning to blacken, but he’d asked to be allowed to hang on for as long as he could bear to. Likely he wouldn’t see sunrise, and Carver wouldn’t be there to see him off. Better for them both to focus on their cards. “You’re twins, right?” Bexley asked, and scowled at his hand.

“I’m older,” Carver said. He drew. Daggers. _Damn_. He paired it off with serpents as if it belonged there, and tried to look pleased.

“Well, why couldn’t you have been born a girl, too, then?”

“So you’d have _my_ tits to stare at?”

“Would’ve been polite. That’s all I’m saying.”

“I mean, I could still take my shirt off?”

“It’s too late. You’ve gone and made it awkward now.” Bexley drew another card, and cursed under his breath. He played a pair of knights. His hand was better than Carver’s. “Game’s hardly worth playing with only two,” he complained.

“I’m the only one stupid enough to put up with your stench,” Carver said. He drew again. It wasn’t good. “Let’s raise the stakes.”

“Raise the - ! Andraste’s ass, boy, you better not be bluffing again!”

“Care to try me?”

Bexley hesitated, then cursed. He threw down his cards. “Out! I’m out!” A coughing fit interrupted the rest of the coming rant, and Carver kept his head down as he picked up the cards and began to shuffle them anew.

What was left of his unit made a very poor showing as they limped across the countryside. They were a far cry from the confident, excited warriors who sang battle chants as they marched to meet the darkspawn with their king in armor that gleamed like the sun. In defeat, they more closely resembled a gang of filthy, over-beaten dogs. They marched in a silence that was only briefly punctuated by the jingle of harness, snippets of low conversation, or the sounds of dying men. What little breeze rose to stir their hair smelled of rot.

Carver didn’t know what to do with the fury that filled every part of him, vibrated in his fingers and in his toes and made his skin feel like it was about to split and peel, to slough away to reveal the creature of rage and violence that lurked beneath.

He had known they were losing and had thrown himself into the darkspawn hordes anyway, screaming his lungs raw, hacking and slashing, raising his sword again and again and again. He’d fought his friends, when they tried to fetch him, until finally they’d been forced to knock him out and drag him bodily from the field.

Carver didn’t have a scratch on him, while so many better men lay rotting where they’d fallen, their softest parts lining the bellies of the vultures or the stew pots of the darkspawn, and Carver didn’t know what to do with his rage.

So, instead, he played cards.

He cut the deck and offered it to Bexley. “Odds are, you’re bound to win one eventually,” he said. “No one’s _that_ bad at cards.”

“No,” Bexley said, leaning his head back. “We’ll be at your stop soon.”

“We have time,” Carver said.

“No, son, I’m done,” Bexley chuckled. “Hand me my pack, will you?”

Carver frowned, but did as asked, and he frowned some more when what Bexley drew from it turned out to be a thick pair of vomit-green socks.

“My wife made these,” Bexley said. “That’s good Fereldan wool, there. Put them on before we get to your stop.”

“One more game,” Carver insisted, but when he looked up he had to admit that he hadn’t realized how close they were to the crossroad that would lead to Lothering. He recognized the fields, the farmhouse with the blue doors, the sails of the windmill in the distance. He’d lost his virginity behind that red grain silo. For a moment he was a child again, jostling around in his father’s cart with Bethy and pouting because Leo got to ride up front again.

He took the socks.

“Are you sure you can’t be convinced to stay on?” Captain Baker asked when they stopped to let him off. A week ago, she’d been only Jess, a farmer’s daughter with soft brown eyes and freckles on her nose like a constellation in the sky. No one of higher rank was left to lead the few who remained. “I could use a man like you when I get to Denerim.”

For a moment, he was tempted.

“I can’t,” Carver said. “My family will be counting on me.”

There had been something there, before the battle. An almost-something, fumbling hands and breathless laughter in the ruins. She’d taste like strawberries.

Carver didn’t wait to see the skeletal remains of his unit cross the bridge. He turned his back and started down the familiar hard-packed dirt road.

\--

Beginning nearly a mile outside Lothering proper, the fields became dark with the tents and campfires of refugees fleeing the Blight’s approach. Elven and human, wealthy or poor, they all bore in common the hope, however futile, of finding safety in numbers. Some were familiar to Carver – farmers whose holdings were simply too isolated, too vulnerable to the coming darkspawn hordes, but many more hailed from villages and towns that had already been consumed. Fields that should have been getting prepared for spring planting were instead being trampled beneath the feet of the desperate and the doomed.

Carver dodged a pair of dogs fighting over a scrap of bone that, in a week’s time would likely be seen as too valuable for the rubbish heap. Assuming anyone here was still alive in a week. Carver shuddered.

He wondered if the news of the army’s defeat had reached this far yet. Surely it had – his unit had been one of the last and the slowest to flee – yet Lothering lacked the signs of sheer panic he had expected to see. The king was dead and his armies scattered, but the people he passed looked resolute in their intent to buckle down and weather out the coming storm.

It was the Ferelden in them, he supposed. No amount of dire warnings would budge his hearty, stubborn countrymen before they were good and ready. As Carver entered the town, he could smell baking bread and smoking meat and he wondered how many animals had already been butchered in anticipation of the lean times to come. His old friend Peaches tried to wave him over to her father’s shop, but he didn’t stop to talk, beyond calling out to ask if she’d seen his mother or sister in town.

“Not today,” she said. “But Carver, your brother - !”

He picked up his pace without waiting to hear what she had to say. Leo, ever a favorite topic of conversation among the likes of Peaches and her friends, was currently far away, safe for the moment playing at big city stable boy and likely oblivious to the coming danger. Carver couldn’t afford to worry about him, at least not until the rest of the family was safe. If his mother wanted to stay, and he was sure she would, then they would have to fortify the farm, prepare the cellar for an emergency. They would need to stockpile food, firewood, elfroot. He’d need to get his hands on some strong locks –

Caught up in his thoughts, Carver nearly tripped over old Barlin as he passed the tavern, and his quick apologies were not enough to spare him the obligation of helping the old man with the heavy sack of traps he carried.

“Got back just in time, you did,” Barlin said, as Carver reluctantly slowed his pace to match the farmer’s. He seemed to have been drinking, which was far from unusual. Barlin’s farm was not far from the Hawke family’s, and he had helped Carver’s father out many times in those lean, early years in Lothering – but the man had his vices.

“ – horse nearly broke my neck, getting it to Miriam, but your mother was insistent she borrow it,” Barlin complained, as if Carver had a clue what he was talking about. The Hawke family had only ever owned one horse – a lazy plough nag Carver had taken with him to Ostagar. She’d died badly, under genlock blades. “Damn woman took every blanket I own for those refugees, too. Your sister batted her eyes and there I was, agreeing like a Blight-addled fool.”

“Bethany has that effect on a lot of people,” Carver said, resigned. His feet itched to go faster – or perhaps that was just the wool socks. At least they were warm. He shifted the bag on his shoulder and tried to tune the old man out, letting his eyes scan the town, trying to judge how it would hold up under darkspawn attack.

“ – Chantry had to break out that old cage. Heartbreaking, really. Shoulda let ‘im rot.”

Carver brought his thoughts back to his companion, startled. “Wait. What? Let who rot?”

“That big beast. The Qunari.” Balin spat and pointed. They were nearing the far edge of the town now, and it took Carver a moment to pick out the unfamiliar silhouette of Lothering’s seldom-used holding cell – a cramped little metal cage hardly big enough to hold a man. As a child, Carver’d had terrible nightmares of seeing his father stuffed behind those bars. It was empty now, but Carver found it no easier to look at than it had ever been.

“Qunari?”

“And Sister Leliana takes off with ‘im, is if he didn’t slaughter poor Em and the kids!” Barlin spat again, and shook his head.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Well, too late to start listening now – here’s where we part, my boy, unless you want to come up to the house. Give me a hand setting up these traps.” They were nearing the windmill that, indeed, marked the place where their paths needed to split.

“I’ve got to get home to mother and Bethany,” Carver said. “They’ll be waiting for me, you see. I’ll have to get the story from you later, if there’s time.” He offered the bag of traps to the old farmer. Barlin wore an odd expression, but he nodded.

“Have it your way, lad,” he said, hefting the sack over his shoulder. “You lot decide you want to wait out the ‘spawn on my property, you let me know.”

“Right,” Carver said. They clasped forearms briefly and Carver felt an unexpected surge of pride. Since their father’s death, Barlin, like most of Lothering, had treated Leo like an extension of Malcolm, but Carver had always been a child to him, not a man. It was the first conversation he’d had with him where Barlin hadn’t offered him a peppermint candy and patted his head at the end. Being a soldier meant finally being treated like a man. Despite everything else, Carver felt a little puffed up as they parted ways. Proud. His armor felt a little lighter.

The familiar road to the Hawke family farm looked unchanged from when he had left, current crisis notwithstanding. If anything, the fields looked smaller to Carver’s newly-worldly eyes, the peeling paint on the fence posts provincial, his childhood tree swing quaint. The sheep were out, heavy with thick matted coats. Their milking cow, Sunni, watched him pass with her slow, placid gaze.

Carver had watched men die. He had listened to the crackle and hiss of darkspawn blood eroding the armor of his friends. He’d felt his shoulder and arm go numb down to the tips of his fingers from meeting a brute’s crushing blow with his blade.

None of that felt real here, where the apple tree where they’d buried his father’s ashes was producing cheerful white buds and there, behind the barn, the ground was still bare from the hours Carver had spent practicing his sword forms. He’d broken his arm falling out of that hayloft, and his father had refused to heal it.

The wind picked up, and it smelled like death. The illusion breaking, Carver jogged the rest of the way up to the house.


	3. The Ebbing Light

As he approached the house, Carver could hear excited barking from his brother’s mabari, Flower, and he thought, for just a moment, how strange that was. Leo had taken the beast with him when he left home. Just as Carver reached for the door handle, it turned and the door swung open from the other side. For a dizzying, confusing moment, he found himself face to face with a ghost.

 _Father?_ He almost blurted the question. Even as he knew it was impossible, for a moment he was caught off guard by his father’s faded flannel stretched across his father’s broad shoulders, his father’s large work-rough hands reaching up to catch his shoulders.

“Carver?” Leo asked, and he came out of his shock with a jolt as Flower pushed past and planted his large paws on his chest. The dog’s tongue was wet and arm against his cheek, and his breath reeked with an unholy stench. In Carver’s shock, the beast got several good licks in before he thought to push him down.

“You grew a beard,” was all Carver could think to say. He felt numb, and shaken, and it sounded like an accusation, more than anything else. His brother moved. They hadn’t seen one another in months, and had never been particularly affectionate, but Carver found himself returning his brother’s sudden and unexpected embrace with just as much fervor with which it was given.

“ _Thank the Maker_ ,” Leo said, and his voice was rough.

Carver was the first to pull away. He had trouble meeting his brother’s eyes.

“I didn’t think you’d be here,” he heard himself say.

“I came as soon as I heard,” Leo said. “Damn near ran a good horse to death.” Carver could feel his brother’s eyes on him, searching for injury, and he shrugged as if he could brush that worried gaze off himself. “We couldn’t get word on you,” Leo continued. “I tried, but everyone who came through Lothering – well, no one had heard a thing.”

“That’s convenient,” Carver said. “I come all this way to rescue mother and Bethany, and you’re already here, ready to save the day.”

Leo dropped his hands. “Carver…”

He forced a laugh, and thumped his brother on the shoulder, and headed inside, nearly tripping over Flower as the hound bounded to his side, backside wagging enthusiastically as he darted around his legs. He indulged the beast in a pat on the head. “Anything to eat around here?”

Leo was still for a moment, silent, staring after him, before he finally let the door close. Carver heard the soft thump of it, and the click of the lock turning. They had never used the lock when their father had been alive. With unease like an itch between his shoulder blades, Carver went to the kitchen and began to snoop through the larder. His brother followed.

“Nearly everything that would keep is packed,” Leo said. His voice was quiet, but hard. “We’re leaving.”

“Leaving?” Carver repeated, glancing back at him. Leo stood in the doorway with his arms crossed and his expression dark.

“If mother hadn’t loaned out the horse, we’d be gone already,” he said, and his displeasure was clear, a thin note of annoyance like the bite at the end of a spicy meal.

“This is our home,” Carver said, turning back to his task.

Again that long stretch of displeased silence. “We’ll make a new home,” Leo said at last. “You have a better idea?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

Leo’s answering grunt was heavy with disbelief.

In a dark, far corner of a shelf, Carver at last found a jar of something that might have been pickles. He retrieved it and turned, finding his brother still watching him. Leo had one of those faces that never looked pleased, and that damn beard almost made it worse. Carver couldn’t shake the feeling that it was his father watching him, hovering just over his brother’s shoulder, ready to correct the slightest misstep. He had been a good man, their father, but he’d had Rules. Carver’s always hated that.

Carver again shook off an uneasy feeling and leaned his hip against the counter. He unscrewed the jar. It was pepper jelly. He tucked his gauntlet under his armpit to pull it off, and kept his eyes on his brother as he plunged his fingers into the jelly. He was home now, and his family was together. More important, he wasn’t the child he had been when he’d left. Things would be fine.

“We could fortify the cellar,” he said. “Get some locks from Byron’s shop, some chains.”

“You can’t be serious.”

Carver struggled to hide his scowl. He scooped jelly out of the jar, lowering his head to suck it from his fingers. He hated that tone of voice his brother used. Only Leo could make him feel two inches tall in a span of four words.

“We keep quiet, don’t use any lights, the darkspawn will never know we’re there,” Carver said. “With enough provisions, we can wait for them to move on.”

“You want to wait out the darkspawn.”

“You don’t have to say it like that,” he grumbled. The jelly was almost rancid, it was so sweet. Flower flopped down at his feet, ugly face turned upward, tongue lolling in a hopeful doggy-smile as he awaited scraps. Carver kept eating. “Don’t act like it’s the most stupid thing you’ve ever heard.”

“It _is_ the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Jackass.”

They both gave guilty jerks with Bethany swept into the room, her arms filled with clothing. “ _You_ see if you can talk some sense into mother, will you?” she demanded, hefting the bundle onto the table with something like disgust. “We’re running for our lives, there’s no point in packing her old ball gowns. And the _curtains_! What in the Maker’s name does she expect to do with those?” she stopped as she looked up and saw Carver. His fingers coated in jelly, he waved with one pinky as she exclaimed, “ _Carver_!”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“You’ve made it back!”

“That seems to be true, for the moment – ah! Watch my hands!” he warned – to no effect – lifting them helplessly with the jar in one and the other hopelessly jelly-coated as Bethany rushed forward to throw her arms around him. “You are aware that hugs are pointless as long as I’m in this armor, aren’t you?”

“Oh, I don’t care – it’s the thought that counts,” she said, and squeezed him anyway. “Oh, how I’ve missed you!”

Incrementally, he began to relax. While extended stretches in Leo’s presence never failed to have Carver feeling tense and anxious, Bethany was a part of him. They had shared a womb, perhaps even a soul at some point, and her presence was an antithesis to everything that was Leopold Hawke. Carver stretched out to set the jar on the counter so he could hug her back, but it was too close to the edge, slipping off and shattering to the ground. It left a long sticky splash along Carver’s armor on the way down, and Bethany pulled quickly away.

“I’ll get the mop.”

“Why bother?” Carver asked. He stretched out his leg to block Flower from nosing in on the mess, and the mabari gave a plaintive whine. “Leo wants us to abandon this place, doesn’t he? What’s a little mess to the darkspawn?”

“Carver,” Bethany frowned.

“No,” Leo said, and Maker but he knew how to sound like a beast when he was unhappy. “He’s right. We should be leaving. Now.”

“Now?” Carver repeated.

“We’ve stayed too long as it is.”

“You’ve lost your mind!” Carver laughed. Leo frowned, and opened his mouth to retort, when Bethany placed a hand on his arm.

“We would only be hurting ourselves if we left now,” she said, and sounded as if this was a conversation they had already had once. “Let us get a good night’s sleep. We’ve got the cart all packed up. Tomorrow morning, Miriam will send your horse back, and we can make our way then. No sense in rushing about now, is there?”

Leo’s lips thinned, but he looked away. Carver could see the way a muscle in his neck stood out, but in the end his brother only nodded. “Sunrise,” he said, “And not a moment later.”

“Sunrise,” she agreed, but Leo was already moving away. The door slammed closed behind him. After a while, they could hear the sounds of him hammering outside, boarding up their windows merely for the excuse of something to do with his hands.

“Oh, Carver,” Bethany said, “I’m so glad you made it home.”

“It sounds as if you would have left without me, if I hadn’t.”

She tilted her head, watching him, her smile slowly fading. “It isn’t as if we would have had a choice, you know,” she said. “It’s your family’s lives you’re talking about.”

“Right,” he said, and even he caught the tone in his voice this time. He gave a guilty wince, and cast about for something else to say. “I should get this jam up.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Bethany said. “You go see if you can convince mother not to take up cart space with her armoire.”

\--

Some of their neighbors came by with a basket of food for the road, and stayed to share a cold dinner of hard bread and cold stew. They sat in a semi-circle around the hearth and spoke in low voices about the Blight and their plans, and everyone seemed afraid to meet everyone else’s eyes, and Flower sat at the door, scratching at the post and whining. They ignored him. The knowledge that they might never see one another again hung heavy in the air and Carver found himself wondering, as he had on the eve of battle, which of the people around him would be dead and rotting in a week’s time.

Carver suggested a game of cards, but no one showed any interest. Though the Hawkes had only packed the essentials they would need for the road onto their cart, the house felt empty, haunted, and their neighbors didn’t stay long. They were planning to wait out the darkspawn, as Carver had thought to do, and had a lot of work to do to finish preparing their homes.

Exhausted as he was, Carver lay upon his bunk staring at the ceiling late into the night, his thoughts racing. When he closed his eyes, he saw the fires of Ostagar. Friends falling under the tides of the darkspawn hordes, reaching for him, screaming for help. When he opened his eyes, the shadows seemed to move with the unnatural sway of approaching hurlocks. He could hear his mother, behind the curtain that separated her sleeping area from her children’s, softly praying into the night. At some point, Bethany got up to join her, curling around her, her voice softly joining in. Eventually they lulled him to sleep.

A loud bang and the sound of Flower’s barking jerked him painfully into wakefulness an unknown time later and Carver sat up so fast he hit his head on his brother’s untouched bunk. He had just a moment to think the first sound had been the door hitting the wall before his brother’s hands were on him, hauling him out of bed.

“Up. Get up. Get dressed. We have to go.”

“Leo - ?”

Leo didn’t wait, showing him toward his trunk and storming to their mother’s quarters, pulling the curtain back so hard it tore. There was an orange cast to the darkness outside the windows. “The darkspawn are here,” Leo said, and Bethany didn’t ask questions, rising immediately from the bed. Carver saw now that she had slept in her clothes, and as he pulled on his shirt and stomped into his boots, she saw to the task of helping their mother dress. Leo was already moving, heading back outside. Carver grabbed his sword and followed.

When Carver joined him, he saw what had caused the orange light on the horizon. Not sunrise, but fire.

Lothering was burning.

“Our neighbors - !” Leandra began, when she and Bethany joined them.

“There’s nothing we can do,” Leo said, and his voice was like iron. “Grab what you can.”

Their cart stood ready, loaded with food and clothes and other essentials for the road, but without the horse it was useless. Leo pulled Bethany’s staff from it and she accepted it from him with lowered eyes. He grabbed a pack and slung it over a shoulder, turning to Carver, and then things happened very quickly.

Flower began to growl, low and deep in the back of his throat, crouched, muscles bunching, and then with a howl of rage he threw himself into the shadows. Leo threw his arm out, and the bag he held caught a Genlock’s blade. As it fell from his hands, their food supplies spilled to the ground. Leo reached out, blindly, and Carver pushed his brother’s staff into his hand.

One of Bethany’s spells lit up the sky, and Carver saw them, briefly, a unit of five darkspawn in the yard. They hesitated only a moment in the sudden light, their pales eyes blinking, flinching, and Carver got his sword in his hands. The Genlock’s head went flying.

It was a luck alone, and the moment of surprise passed quickly. The darkspawn screamed in fury, and Carver surged forward to meet their blades. There had been no time to don his armor – it still lay in a heap by Carver’s bed where he had stripped it off the night before – and the flash and flare of spells made it difficult for his eyes to focus in the darkness. He could hear Flower barking and growling, and the twirl of staves cutting through the air, the bite and hiss of magic. He raised his blade to meet a jarring blow, lost a step, swung. He met something meaty, and didn’t stop to think.

It was over as soon as it started.

The pink of true sunrise had begun to touch the horizon as the Hawke family stood, panting and splattered with blood, and there was no mistaking the black mass of darkspawn bodies spreading from the town of Lothering like a disease, leaving destruction in its wake. Carver stared, transfixed, watching the town below him burn, the darkspawn swarming like ants at a ruined feast, and he thought of Barlin, and Peaches, and everyone else meeting their fates down below.

“ _Run_ ,” Leo rasped, his voice rough and heavy with authority.

Carver turned his back on his home, and he ran.

 


	4. The Dying Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of this is lifted from the original version of the story. That will be happening from time to time but not as often as you might expect. Anyway, enjoy <3

Hawke’s staff whistled as it swung through the air, and the darkspawn blade it met cut a deep ugly gouge in the wood and stuck there. They struggled together for a moment, trapped. The creature’s milky eyes were hot with hatred and its breath swept over him like an open grave. Its skin crawled with the movements of the kinds of tiny critters that liked to feast on rotting flesh.

He hauled his arm back and struck, his fist sinking into something that possessed both the temperature and consistency of day-old oatmeal. The darkspawn stumbled back, and Hawke wrenched his staff free. His powerful arms trembled as he swung the blade upwards to catch the creature under the hollow of its jaw.

“I’m no expert, brother,” Carver called, “But I don’t think that’s how magic works!” Hawke could see him, peripherally, a mad grin on his face, his sword thick with gore, and he only grunted in response. Hawke pulled his staff blade out through the darkspawn’s face with a wet sound, and turned his head under the lukewarm splash of viscous blood, wary of the danger of ingesting any. The darkspawn stumbled, lifeless, to the ground.

Everything ached, but he waited, watchful, for the next wave of attacks, and could only whisper a breathless prayer of gratitude when there was none forthcoming. He wiped sweat and worse from his brow with the back of his forearm.

“Clear,” he called.

“Clear!” Carver repeated, shoving a darkspawn off the end of his blade with a grunt.

There was a flare of light and an explosion of heat to his left, then Bethany panted, “Clear.”

Hawke let himself lean back against the cliff face with something like a laugh, bleak and humorless as he felt. His head was spinning.

The day had dawned with unseasonable warmth, and it only seemed to grow hotter the higher the Hawke family climbed along the mountain pass. It was approaching midday, and they had been running since sunrise, the air around them thick and sticky with the sweet smell of rot. They’d been forced to abandon their coats along the way.

Flower’s coat and muzzle were black with darkspawn blood that clung to him like tar, but the hound showed no sign of distress, bounding around his master in excitement. Hawke let his hand fall to absently pat the beast’s head as his eyes strayed, forced by some cruel compulsion, toward the town they had left behind. Lothering waited below, still in plain view. It was alight with darkspawn fires. Sometimes, even here, the wind carried the echoes of screams.

There would be time for guilt later.

“Maker!” Bethany said, and it wasn’t clear if her words were a curse or a prayer. “They’re everywhere!”

Bethany’s hair was limp and matted with sweat and blood and Maker only knew what else. Her shoulders were heavy with exhaustion, but her eyes were bright, alert. Hawke pushed away from the wall, let his eyes scan their surroundings. He ached to rest, but they had to keep moving.

“I think that’s all of them,” Carver said, but Bethany shook her head.

“For the moment,” she corrected. Hawke took a deep breath. He could see how she gripped her staff white-knuckled, and how Carver’s every move seemed heavy with exhaustion.

He could see how Mother seemed to have aged fifty years in the span of one morning – how she stood, pale and frail, hands wringing, and how she looked at him as if the world itself depended on the answers he found.

He had to be stronger.

“Maker save us,” Mother said. “We’ve lost it all. Everything your father and I built…”

“We have to get out of here while we still can,” Hawke said, cutting her off before she could say more. His voice was harsh, alien to his own ears. He wanted it that way. He was afraid that if he let even a crack of softness in he would fall apart completely. He couldn’t afford to be sad right now, just as he couldn’t afford to be tired, or to think about how far ahead they could have been by now, if only he’d put his foot down last night. They had to keep moving. If he let himself rest for another moment –

His mother flinched under his words, and Hawke clenched his kaw. He was harsh because it mattered – he could apologize later, when they were all safe.

“Yes,” Mother said, “You’re right.”

Hawke had to look away. His mouth tasted foul. Bethany was staring at him, fierce-eyes, and he couldn’t stand that, either, couldn’t stand that his gentle sister had blood on her dress and fear in her eyes. There was pity there, too. Bethany had always understood him in a way no one else ever had. She would know, most likely, the war that raged inside.

\--

Bethany’s only dream had been to live a quiet, unremarkable life. It seemed unreal that the endless, quiet days on the farm had suddenly and irrevocably turned into a desperate flight for survival.

As the sun passed its zenith in the sky, there was little relief from the unnatural heat that beat down so heavily upon their heads, magnified tenfold by the lingering flames from one of her brother’s spells. Bethany wiped sweat from her brow and lifted her heavy hair from the back of her neck, struggling to catch her breath. She had never used so much power at once before, not in her entire life.

Leo barely gave them time to rest, rifling quickly through the rags on the darkspawn corpses for any of the coin they would so sorely need on this journey, fleeing home with nothing but the clothes on their backs. When he rose, he kicked at the creature’s head and it burst like an overripe melon. He hardly seemed to see it before he began again up the narrow mountain path, his pace, if anything, quicker than before. His face was a thundercloud, jaw square and set, shoulders tight. He reminded her of their father, the day after a sudden blizzard killed all their livestock and ruined the spring planting in one fell swoop. Their neighbors had saved them, then. Now they only had one another.

“Wait,” Bethany begged. She had to use the butt of her staff to prompt herself into movement again. “Where are we going?”

“Away from the darkspawn. Where else?” Carver was just as exhausted as she was. His hair was plastered to his forehead, his hands unsure when he sheathed his sword.

But Leo was showing no signs of weariness, and so Carver’s pride demanded that he keep up. He puffed his chest a little, and tried to look brave. Ahead, realizing he was alone, Leo slowed and turned around. His eyes travelled past them, and, fearing the worst, Bethany let hers follow.

Behind them, there mother had seated herself on a boulder, and Flower’s head rested in her lap. The mabari gave a tired whine, urging her to rise. When Bethany looked back to Leo, she saw the answer in his eyes before she even voiced her question. “And then where?” she asked, knowing he didn’t know, knowing his only thought for the moment was to get them _away_. “We can’t just wander aimlessly!”

Carver hesitated, deflating a little. He licked his lips, and glanced Leo’s way. Their older brother was silent for a long, hard moment before speaking.

“We stay alive,” he said. “That’s the only thing we need to worry about right now.”

Bethany sagged, even as Carver gave a knowing nod, as if his answer had been the same. _We fly to the moons_ , he might as well have said. It seemed just as realistic at the moment.

“We can go to Kirkwall,” Mother said. Bethany hadn’t known she was even listening, but her tone of voice made it clear she had already decided.

“ _What”_? Leopold demanded. “Why would we go there?”

Bethany swallowed, and tried to speak clearly and slowly. “There’s a _lot_ of Templars in Kirkwall, Mother…”

“I know that,” Mother drew a deep breath, and nodded, and drew herself to her feet. “But we still have family there – and an estate.”

It was Carver’s look she wore. That stubborn, mulish, _dig-your-heels-in-and-hang-on-until-you-bleed_ look. Leopold saw it too, and a muscle in his jaw twitched in response. Bethany sighed.

“We would need to get to Gwaren and take ship,” she pointed out.

“If we can even survive that long,” Carver said, turning away. “I’ll just be happy to get out of here.” He rounded a corner, lost to them for a moment as Bethany and Leo exchanged glances.

“Maybe we - ?” Bethany began. A shout from Carver cut her question off before it could properly begin.

Leo was the first to move, staff twisting, whirling in his large, strong hands as if he hadn’t been fighting all morning. The crackle of electricity filled the air, raising the hair on Bethany’s arms as Leo brought his staff down with a deafening _crack_ of thunder. She got a barrier up over Carver moments before she even saw the darkspawn he had walked into, just before the first of the monsters slammed into him. She pulled her magic through the Fade, more than she’d ever known herself capable of accessing, drawing it in, deep, deeper, more than she’d ever before dared before now, when they were desperate and there was no other choice left. She barely heard the whispers of spirits as they babbled for her attentions.

A battle cry filled the air, and too late Bethany saw the pair ahead of them on the trail, a man and a woman with swords, cutting into the Darkspawn. Leo’s staff spun and lashed, flames from the tip incinerating a trio of Darkspawn. There would be no hiding what he was – what either of them were. Bethany gathered more power from that surprisingly deep reserve she had found, and for a while there was nothing but magic at her fingertips, the stink of battle in her nose, the sounds of combat and the whispers of the Fade filling her ears.

“You will not have him!” the man up ahead had fallen, and the woman had a darkspawn on the ground, and was slamming her bare fists into its face, cracking bone and splattering dark, vile blood. She barely seemed to notice, lost to her rage, face a flush and snarling mask, splattered with that vile, dark blood. Bethany only caught sight for a moment before another pair of darkspawn closed in, and Bethany could only defend herself, only concentrate on surviving a little longer.

Then their way was clear, the darkspawn focused on the two strangers and for a moment, just a moment Bethany thought –

They could have gotten past them, run while the creatures were distracted, but Leo had other plans. She felt the surge of his power, the cool wash of it stirring her sweaty hair as he sent of wave of ice, sharp as daggers, jutting up from under the darkspawn.

“Stop squirming, Wesley, you’ll make it worse,” the woman said when it was over. She squatted down before her fallen man to check his injuries. He allowed it for but a moment before he noticed their approach and, bloodied, wounded, brushed her aside and leapt so quickly to his feet that the action brought a wince and a shifting of his hand to the wound in his side.

“Apostate!” he snarled, and his eyes were on Bethany, furious, and _oh Maker, a templar._ “Keep your distance!”

“Well,” Bethany released the breath she had been holding. Her entire body ached from the amount of magic she’d used. She felt shaken, unstable, exhausted, empty now that she’d released her hold on the Fade – the only thing she didn’t feel, it seemed, was fear.  “The Maker has a sense of humor. Darkspawn, and now a templar. I thought you all abandoned Lothering.”

“The ‘spawn are clear in their intent,” the templar said, eyes shifting to Leo as he shouldered his staff and moved forward. “But a mage is _always_ unknown. The Order dictates - !”

“Wesley,” the woman with him chided.

He grunted in pain, hand lifting to his side again, but he took a step toward Bethany. In an instant, Leo was there, between her and the templar, his shoulders back, his eyes like molten fire.

Even if one had no idea he was mage, Leopold Hawke would have been an impressive man. He had a good head’s height on templar, at least ten more pounds of pure muscle, and a temper that burned cold and steady and sure.

The look in his molten eyes sent a shiver up Bethany’s spine, but still the templar grit his teeth and went toe to toe with him. “The _Order_ ,” he said, “ _Dictates - !”_

Leo crossed his arms. He didn’t move. The templar shifted, his hand balling into a fist.

“Dear, they _saved_ us,” the woman said. She spoke gently but firmly, taking hold of his arm. “The Maker understands.”

There was a beat of hesitation before the templar backed down. “Of course,” he said reluctantly.

The woman exhaled, and looked away from them to take in Leo and the rest of the Hawke family. “I am Aveline Vallen,” she offered after only a moment. “This is my husband, Ser Wesley. We can hate each other when we’re safe from the horde.”

Leo still looked far too much like a dog that was ready to bite. “A strange time to be hunting apostates,” he stated coldly, jerking his chin toward the other man. “His fellows left with the Chantry priests.”

Ser Wesley rolled his shoulders and glanced at his wife before answering. He kept his own tone cordial, if with obvious strain. “I was travelling to Denerim on business for the Order, but I had to turn south when I heard of Ostagar,” he explained.

“Bad luck – and judgement – brought us together here before the attack,” his wife agreed. Bethany watched the pair carefully, sliding her fingers along the grain of her staff and trying to get some idea of how much power she had left.

“The nice templar has been convinced to postpone his hunt for illegal mages,” Bethany reminded her brother through a tight, forced smile. “Let’s not dwell upon it, shall we?”

It earned an appraising look and a smile from Aveline. “Wise girl,” she murmured.

Leo shook his head, his stern frown growing harder. “You’re quick to offer your allegiance.”

Behind him, Carver laughed, the noise trailing off awkwardly as he realized their brother wasn’t kidding. He moved, placing a hand on Leo’s shoulder. “Well, c’mon,” Carver said. “Another blade between us and the Darkspawn? Yes please!”

Leo grunted, shrugging the hand off. “So long as the horde is their first concern,” he said.

Ser Wesley worked his jaw, hands clenching and unclenching at his side. “My duty is clear,” he said. Bethany had a feeling he was weighing the odds he, injured, and his wife had against two apostates, a warrior, and a mabari. “But that…is for another day. If we are granted that opportunity.”

Leo grunted again. “For a while it looked like we were the only ones to escape the darkspawn,” he said.

“We aren’t free of them yet,” Carver pointed out sourly, crossing his arms, hunching his shoulders a bit. “ _You_ didn’t see Ostagar. This is just the start.”

Aveline blinked in surprise, and looked Carver over anew. “You were there? Yes, I see it now,” she realized. “Third company, under Captain Varel.”

“Then you saw how the whole army was defeated,” he said. Carver’s tone had grown somber, but Bethany had the feeling her twin found it validating to have his contribution acknowledged.

She shook her head. “We fell to betrayal, not the darkspawn. This arm of the horde will not have the same advantage.”

Leo had stood silent during this exchange, but he exhaled loudly now, and nodded to himself, and began to walk. “I’m watching you, templar,” he said.

Ser Wesley’s eyes narrowed. “And I you,” he said. Turning to have to talk at Leo’s passing back somewhat weakened his strong stance. “Terms I am sure we both expected!” he added, and hissed, a hand falling to his wounded side again. Aveline moved to help support him.

“For now we move with you,” Aveline said. “North is cut off. We barely escaped the main body of the horde.”

Leo paused, but didn’t turn back to them, his eyes scanning the horizon. From this vantage, the burning homes and fields of Lothering were all too prominent.

“Then…we’re trapped!” Carver realized, as their mother gave a sudden sob, lifting her hands to her face. “The Wilds are to the south! That’s no way out!”

Leo was silent for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was cold, bare steel. “I’m not running straight into the horde,” he stated. “We go south.”

He began to walk again, not leaving them so much as a moment to argue, and they fell in behind him, as people so often tended to do with Leopold Hawke. After a few steps, Bethany turned back, realizing their mother was not following.

“Mother?”

Silent tears left tracks in the dirt on her weathered face as Leandra watched the darkness that crawled over their home. She resisted for just a moment as Bethany took her hands in her own and began to pull her forward.

“Mother,” Bethany said gently. “It’s going to be all right. It has to be, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t feel that anything will ever be all right again,” Leandra breathed, but allowed Bethany to pull her forward. Bethany entwined her fingers with her mother’s and gave her hand a squeeze, doing her best to offer her a smile.

“Think about how nice it will be to get to Kirkwall,” she said. “You always said you wanted to go back to visit.”

“Please,” her mother said. “Don’t do that.”

Bethany fell silent. Up ahead, Flower barked and pranced around the legs of the humans, attempting to lighten the mood. Bethany quietly called him back to her.

There was a heaviness to the furnace of the air as they walked. The dirt and dust they kicked up formed a fearful paste with the darkspawn gore that now peppered their clothing. Under the sun, the stench was nauseating. Carver began to limp, but when Bethany offered to heal him, she only earned a dirty look in response. Ser Wesley’s injury troubled her as well, but it was clearly more than she had the talent for – at least not when she needed what little power she had left to defend herself against the darkspawn – and so she was hesitant to offer. Healing a templar who had so much as said he would take her and Leo in, if he could, seemed an unwise idea.

“We fought as long as we could,” she overheard Carver telling Aveline as they walked. “I _tried_ – well…”

“It’s hard to admit the battle’s lost. Ordering my men to quit the field was no easy feat,” Aveline sighed and shook her head. “I told them to keep going as long as they needed to. Make for their homes. I hope they made it, poor bastards.”

There was a great rumbling sound from somewhere, and the group began to slow, then, ultimately, came to a stop, exchanging glances. Carver’s answer died on his tongue. The earth below them was shaking, violently, and Bethany threw out her hands to keep her balance. The dust it raised was blinding, suffocating. Bethany began to cough –

And then she saw the pair of horns rising over the next bend.

The ogre threw itself forward, tossing Leo and Carver and Aveline aside like a child’s dolls. Bethany backed up, arms extended, shielding her mother as the creature’s eye turned on them. She realized that Leo and the others would not be able to step in on time. She could likely move, get out of the way – but mother -

Bethany’s only dream had been to live a quiet, unremarkable life.

But now was not the time for dreaming. Bethany gathered her courage with her power. Demons howled across the Fade, their pleas lost as the creature let forth a horrendous roar, spraying vile spittle and breath like the grave. Leandra’s hands plucked at Bethany, trying to pull her back. She pushed her mother away.

“Maker,” she prayed, “Give me strength.”

The first spell barely seemed to singe the thing’s flank. She was gathering the second when its hand descended.

She heard her mother scream. The world spun around her. She was still trying to form her spell when a sharp pain left her breathless, her blood rushing through her ears. She heard a sharp _crack_.

Bethany wondered if -

 


	5. Darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is lots of game dialogue in this one. I hate doing that, but it's necessary. I promise the further I go with this, the more I'll be able to limit it. For now, I hope it's not too much of a bother.

Carver felt it – the moment like a physical blow, the air leaving his body on impact with one giant and terrible _whoosh_ and replaced only by an empty ache where his heart used to be.

Carver knew Bethany was dead before he ever caught sight of her body – limp, lifeless, tossed through the dusty mountain air like a child’s discarded plaything.

He knew she was dead, as he rolled onto hands and knees in the dirt, as blackness dotted his vision, swimming, dancing, taunting him with the leering visage of death. Carver couldn’t feel the ground beneath him or the sky above him. He could no longer smell the rot in the air or taste the blood on his lips, because Bethany –

Oh, Maker, _Bethany_ –

His ribs were cracked. His nose was probably broken.

All Carver could feel was the absence of feeling. A light that had always burned suddenly just didn’t. The heartbeat that had formed beside his own had just, simply, stopped.

Carver climbed to his feet. He swayed, dizzy and disbelieving.

Leo’s scream of rage was primeval, animal, vocal-tearing, and it nearly eclipsed their mother’s own anguished cry of “Bethany!” Carver’s ears were ringing, and he barely heard either of them, but he watched through blurry eyes, swaying, as Leo picked himself up from the ground and threw himself at the ogre.

The rotten dusty air around them came suddenly to life, sharp and static and thick with ozone as lightning danced across his brother’s rough fingertips. Leo charged, swinging his staff like a halberd, spell sparking – only for the ogre to toss him aside like a summerfly on a cow’s ass. For a second time, Leo went flying, and hit the ground, hard.

Leo got back up.

Carver was processing things too slowly. Movement from the corner of his eye – Aveline Valen running forward, blocking a blow with her shield. The ground shaking and splitting under Leo’s rage, Leo’s power. Flower threw himself at the ogre’s back and the creature arched and roared.

Carver lifted his sword, and he moved.

The first blow jarred him, sent painful shocks down his arms. Carver didn’t care. When the creature turned, snarling, snapping at Aveline, he struck again, cutting a deep swathe into the darkspawn’s side. Flames sprang up to dance along the wound, hot and bright and followed quickly by a chill that slowed the ogre’s movements as it turned back to Carver.

He dodged its hand, felt the deep cut of a claw along his cheek. He didn’t care. Carver was in the creature’s space now, as close as he dared without losing the full motion of his broadsword. Flower tore into the ogre’s back. Aveline stepped in to take a blow he hadn’t even noticed against her shield as if it were nothing.

And Carver thrust his blade in deep.

The ground trembled when the ogre fell. Carver nearly followed, his sword sticking for a moment in bone. When he got it free he lifted it, again and again, hacking, tears burning his face like tracks of fire.

Leo stood, heavy shouldered, his breathing labored. His eyes were transfixed on the fallen darkspawn as if he didn’t really see it. As if something else played across the canvas of his vision. His staff began to slip from his weary fingers before he suddenly tightened his grip, and squared his shoulders, and turned to face the horror that was their new reality.

Carver didn’t know how he could bear to look, but he turned anyway, because Leo did. He walked because Leo walked, jogged because Leo jogged, and he waited, numb and empty and bleak, as Leo hit his knees heard beside their mother.

Leandra had Bethany in her arms, gathered close to her chest, her arms trembling and tight. “Wake up,” she begged, on the edge of wailing, her face dirty and tear streaked, her voice weak. “Bethany, wake up! The battle’s over! We’re f-we’re fine!”

Aveline and her husband had followed the brothers, standing over the broken lump of a family with knowing expressions that told Carver everything he had already knew, even as Leandra buried her face in her daughter’s hair, stroking it, sobbing.

“I’m sorry, mistress,” Aveline said, even as Leandra’s breath hitched and her head shook and she clutched Bethany’s broken body more tightly too herself. “Your daughter is gone.”

“No!” Leandra shrieked. Her entire body was shaking. Her voice was savage, rough. Aveline exchanged a glance with her husband, then bowed her head. Leo’s eyes were on his mother, his expression stone, his body still. “These things will not take Bethany!” Leandra sobbed.

Leo’s voice was hard, and devoid of anything like emotion. “If you fall apart now, you endanger us all,” he said, and his mother drew back as if he had slapped her. She looked dumbfounded for only a moment before her brows drew down and her eyes grew hard.

“Don’t lecture me!” she snarled, “This is _your_ fault! How _could_ you let her charge off like that?” Leo didn’t flinch, didn’t draw back, his eyes fixed on her, then lowering, slowly, to his sister’s corpse. His expression could have been carved from marble for all the life it had, his jaw tight, his eyes like fire. Leandra pulled Bethany to herself again, rocking her, sobbing now, “Oh, my poor little girl. My sweetheart.”

“If we stand here weeping, the darkspawn will take the rest of us, too,” Carver said, and he didn’t recognize his own voice in his ears, how blank it sounded, how defeated. His mother shook her head, clutched Bethany tighter, and Ser Wesley stepped forward.

“Allow me to commend your daughter’s soul to the Maker, mistress,” he suggested gently.

For a long moment, it seemed like she wouldn’t agree. They would sit there in their grief and wait for the darkspawn, end their days right there next to Bethany, still in sight of home, and Carver – Carver wasn’t so sure that would be a terrible thing.

But then Leandra nodded, and her hands shook as she lowered Bethany to the ground, and she stroked her daughter’s hair from her face as he began his prayer.

Bethany’s lips already looked blue.

“I will never forget you, Bethany,” Leandra whispered as Ser Wesley prayed, and Carver felt nothing. Leo rose.

“Our lives are more valuable to her than our prayers,” Leo said, his voice like iron. He took hold of Mother’s arm and pulled. “Let’s _go._ ”

As Leandra gained her feet, Leo released her and turned away, his expression a thunderhead, his hand white-knuckled against his staff. He took a step, and that was when Carver heard it – the growls and cries of the darkspawn, the clatter of their armor and their weapons and their blood lust.

“ _Flames_ ,” Aveline said, reaching for her sword. “We’re too late.”

“There’s no end to them,” Carver said, but Leo stepped forward, and so he did, too. His sword had never felt so heavy. The air seemed thin, and rank, and poisonous. Carver watched the darkspawn surround them, ten, twenty, more, and he thought how satisfying it would be to throw himself amongst them. He could take out quite a few, before they tore him apart. He awaited his brother’s signal, and tensed as Leo began to lift his staff.

A cry split the air, a sound that raised the hairs on Carver’s arms and brought a tremor of fear through his shock where the hordes of darkspawn had failed to touch.

At the top of the mountain, a dragon unfurled her wings. They glistened in the sunlight, a million glittering gemstones. The dragon screamed again, and launched herself from her perch.

She swooped low, coming in, and Carver only stared. He was vaguely aware of his brother’s hand in his shirt, a sharp pull downward. The next thing he was aware of, he was on the ground again, mouth full of dirt and face burning from the heat of a thousand ovens. Dragonfire, brighter and hotter than anything his brother could summon, consumed the darkspawn before them, so close he could hear his hair sizzle. Leo was beside him on the ground, his body half covering him, shielding him, his molten eyes on the dragon as she swooped ‘round, grabbing up a darkspawn in her terrible jaws and ending it in a single crunch, then dropping it. She turned, diving again, black and crimson death against the sky, and as she landed, Carver managed to struggle out from under his brother’s hold.

Leo cursed, and picked himself up from the ground, staff in hand, putting himself before them – before Carver, and Aveline, Mother and Ser Wesley, watching, wary, ready, as another bout of fire took out more darkspawn.

The dragon roared, rearing up, grasping one of the remaining monsters in a single sharp claw, and Carver scrambled to his feet as those eyes fixed on his brother.

Light flared. Reality…shifted. Something magical happened, probably.

Where the dragon had stood, there was now instead a woman – proud, handsome, and terrible, so powerful that she made Carver’s teeth ache, though he had never possessed the ability to sense magic in others. She approached, dragging the final darkspawn like a cat with a mouse, her eyes, golden and ancient, moving over the group.

When she spoke, it was slow, deliberate, and it made Carver incredibly uncomfortable.

“Well, well, what have we here?”

Leo was the only one to move, stepping forward, putting more distance between himself and the rest of them – making himself the target – even as Ser Wesley’s knees gave out, and he stumbled to the ground. The woman spoke again.

“It used to be we never got visitors to the Wilds, but now it seems they arrive in hordes!”

“I don’t know who you are,” Leo said, “But I won’t let you harm us.”

She laughed.

“Let me?” she asked. “If I wished you harm, I daresay you could not stop me.” Leo rolled his shoulders, and he did not move, and for a wonder it was this woman, this dragon, who turned her gaze away first, looking over the destruction she had wrought, turning her back to them to look over the cliff face to the fiery ruins of Lothering beyond. “If you wish to flee the darkspawn,” she said, “You should know you are heading in the wrong direction.”

“So – you’re just going to leave us here?” Carver demanded. When she glanced back, he regretted speaking.

“And why not?” she asked. “I spotted a most curious sight: a mighty ogre, vanquished! Who could perform such a feat? But now my curiosity is sated, and you are safe – for the moment. Is that not enough?”

“We’ll get to Kirkwall on our own,” Leo said.

“Kirkwall?” she laughed. “My, but that is quite the voyage you plan. So far…simply to flee the darkspawn.”

Leo shifted his grip on his staff, and Carver prayed to the Maker his brother wasn’t weighing his chances against such a creature. “Our home is gone,” Leo said. “I don’t imagine you care.”

“I see,” the woman said, and stared at him for a very long moment. “Hurtled into the chaos you fight…and the world will shake before you. Is it fate or chance? I can never decide.” She turned away, briefly, and when she turned back, there was something settled in her face, some decision written into her countenance as clear as the wrinkles that marked the passage of time. She said, “It appears fortune smiles on us both today. I may be able to help you yet.”

“Didn’t I say we didn’t need you?” Leo demanded.

“Perhaps not,” she said. “But it turns out, I need you.”

\--

Hawke could feel his brother at his back, tense, ready to act if it came to a fight, even against this – this creature, whatever she was, that could be a dragon one moment, and a woman the next. The air felt strange around her, wrong, and there was a buzzing in Hawke’s ears.

“Should we even trust her?” Carver asked, hissing the question at his brother as if this woman would not be able to hear it. His eyes never left her. “We don’t even know what she is!”

“I know what she is,” Aveline said from behind them, where she still knelt with her husband. “The Witch of the Wilds.”

“Some call me that,” the woman agreed, though she didn’t bother looking Aveline’s way. They were gnats to her, not a single one of them a threat. “Also Flemeth. Asha’bellanar. An _old hag who talks to much._ ” She laughed, her gaze eerie, ancient, and too powerful. Whatever she wanted, making a deal with her couldn’t possibly be a good idea. Leo remembers his father’s stories, of mortals who struck bargains with things beyond their comprehension.

But Bethany was gone, and the darkspawn were coming.

“Does it matter?” Flemeth asked. “I offer you this: I will get your group past the horde in exchange for a simple delivery to place not far out of your way. Would you do this for a _Witch of the Wilds_?”

Hawke rolled his shoulders. He frowned. This _Flemeth_ looked only amused.

“What is a Witch of the Wilds, exactly?” he asked carefully.

“A Chasind legend,” Aveline answered. “Witches that steal children.”

“Bah!” Flemeth laughed. “As if I had nothing better to do!”

“Then you’re an apostate,” Hawke said, even as he knew that couldn’t be true. Not entirely.

“Yes,” Flemeth said with a predator’s smile. “We have so much in common!”

“You would go through all this trouble just to have something delivered?” Hawke demanded.

“I have – an appointment to keep. It is far more convenient this way. Happily, you are not without your own needs.”

He clenched his jaw. There was always a price to pay, when one made deals with things one couldn’t understand. He had been cautioned of such all his life.  But mother and Caver – what wouldn’t he be willing to give - ?

“How much trouble will this delivery be, exactly?” Hawke asked.

“About as much trouble as saving your lives not five minutes ago.”

“That’s a lot to ask without telling us what this involves.”

“It’s nothing more dangerous than one so capable can handle.”

She was losing patience, and he could feel it. She wasn’t a demon, but she wasn’t – wasn’t some mere apostate, either. What she asked sounded too simple, but he had no other choice, did he? Five lives had depended on him, and he had already failed one. Bethany – no, he didn’t have time for that. Reluctantly, he broke his gaze from the Witch, turning to the others.

“Should we trust her?”

“Wesley is injured,” Aveline said. “We’ll never escape the darkspawn.”

“If you need to, leave me beind,” the templar said.

“No! I said I would drag you out if I had to, and I meant it!”

Hawke looked back to the Witch. His shoulder blades itched. He didn’t want to be responsible for this decision. This sacrifice. There would be a price. There was always a price.

“I have to reach Kirkwall first,” he said, and Flemeth smiled.

“But you will do it,” she said.


	6. Storms

Ser Wesley died.

Perhaps he would have lasted longer, lingering in pain and in terror until either the darkspawn or their taint stole what was left of the man he had been, but his wife offered him the mercy of her blade, plunged deep and dry-eyed, and he died with a smile on his lips.

For a wonder, Leo had left the decision up to Aveline. “He’s your husband,” he’d said, quiet, subdued – as if dragging a man infected with Blight along with them were in any way a viable alternative. Aveline seemed grateful to be left the illusion of a choice, anyway.

They arranged Ser Wesley’s body beside Bethany’s, and though he had no Chantry authority to do so, Carver spoke over Ser Wesley the same words the knight had offered up for Bethany. No one tried to stop him or offered comment, so he hoped the gesture wasn’t entirely blasphemous. It was the only bit of ceremony they had before Leo stepped forward. His hands shook, from emotion or from exhaustion, as he called fire to consume their bodies.

Bodies. That was all Bethany had become - like the friends Carver had left at Ostagar, the spark of life had left her even as her perfume lingered, mingling grotesquely with the stench of burning flesh and hair.

Bethany should have lived. She deserved life – a quiet, happy life, where she knitted socks and baked pies and sang doing laundry. Where she met a good man her brothers both hated on principle, and had a dozen round-cheeked children with him, and where, when she died, frail and white haired and tucked snugly in her bed, her ashes were buried under the apple tree with father’s.

She didn’t deserve to die afraid, in violence, her remains abandoned while they still burned and scattered, heedlessly, by the winds that passed over the wreck of Lothering.

Leo was the first to turn from the makeshift pyre, his expression stony under the ash that speckled his face. Their sister’s blood streaked his beard. He looked monstrous, frightening, even to Carver. Mother drew back as he passed.

“Hawke,” Aveline said, and Carver nearly missed the flash of surprise that flickered, brief and bleak, across his brother’s harsh face as she reached out to grasp his forearm like comrades in the field, bound by the reality of their shared grief.

The moment was over quickly. The brief break in Leo’s expression settled itself, and he gave Aveline a nod. They parted.

When Leo turned to Flemeth, his shoulders were square and his jaw was set and Carver, watching him, had no idea how close he had come to breaking. All he saw was his brother, unmoved by the grief that wrenched his heart and pricked his eyes and made each breath seem more pointless than the last.

“Lead on,” Leo told the witch, and they left Bethany on the mountain.

\--

Carver couldn’t have said if Flemeth’s magic sped their way, or if it was merely an insurmountable combination of shock, grief, and exhaustion that blurred the trip to Gwaren to such an extent that, later, he wouldn’t know if they had walked for days or for weeks.

Their journey was flat and colorless, haunted by the shadow of the dragon that tracked their passage, and punctuated by a hollow ache Carver dare not prod too closely. They walked, they ate the provisions the witch provided them, and every night they collapsed in the dirt to do something like sleep. They rarely spoke, and the silence that enclosed them was only sometimes marked by the dragon’s screams, ahead or behind, as Flemeth kept the darkspawn from their path.

Later, Carver would find it easier to simply regard that time as a long and terrible nightmare – a harsh and unforgiving dream that ended with painful abruptness on the docks of Gwaren.

Smell and noise and color rushed over him, hitting him suddenly, and with all the force of a physical blow. It wasn’t rot, and dust, and his sister’s burning flesh the wind carried, but fishy ocean, and body odor, and roadside food stalls. Merchants cried their wares, fishermen shouted to whores, and the world, without warning, became real again.

He was hungry, and filthy, and he stank. His injuries had been magically healed, though he couldn’t remember when it happened, and his hands were black with dirt, and soot, and something that might once have been blood. Everything ached, and his heart was empty.

Leo’s face was unreadable as he returned from speaking with the dockmaster. His broad shoulders tense, he seemed to loom. With his beard overgrown and his hair a shaggy mess he more closely resembled a bear roused unwillingly from winter’s slumber than the brother Carver knew. He reached out as he approached, and his fingers briefly skimmed the back of Carver’s head. It was a familiar gesture from their boyhood, and it brought with it a flash of memory of long days in the field – bright sun, lumbering plough horse, the smell of freshly turned earth. Carver jerked away.

Leo let his hand drop. “They’re leaving in an hour,” he said. “They’ll take us on, but it’s going to cost everything we have.”

“You mean - ? Leopold, your father gave me this!” Leandra cupped her hand to her chest, fingers curling protectively around her wedding band. Leo stared at her, and slowly closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, the way he did when he was struggling with his patience.

“Mother,” he began.

“You can give him mine, Hawke,” Aveline said, stepping forward. She twisted the ring on her finger, struggling to remove it, and Leo shook his head.

“Aveline - ”

“Don’t argue with me.” It came loose, suddenly, her elbow jerking back with momentum and striking him in the sternum. Leo only grunted, and accepted it when she thrust the bit of gold into his hand. His fingers curled slowly around it.

“Thank you,” he said instead.

She nodded briskly, her face a mask of control. She hesitated. “Wesley’s shield,” she began. Her hands trembled as she reached up.

“No – no, this is enough,” Leo said. “I’ll be right back.”

They were silent as he left again, his back straight and his shoulders square. He moved with purpose, with no sign of such weariness as Carver himself felt, his mabari loyally trotting along at his heels. Carver couldn’t help but wonder if, with the boats already so weighed down with refugees, anyone but his brother would have had half so much success booking their passage. It put a bitter taste in his mouth, the realization he could not have done the same.

“Malcolm toiled for years to save up enough for this ring,” Leandra said, turning the bit of silver around her finger. The glass stones flickered in the harsh sunlight. She sounded like she was making excuses. “Leopold was just a child, and we didn’t know I was pregnant with the twins, and he was so _proud_ of it. He went all the way to Denerim for it.”

“It’s all right, Mistress,” Aveline said. Her voice was heavy. Her skin was paler where the ring had been. She put her hands behind her back.

“I can have it replaced,” Leandra promised. “As soon as we reach Kirkwall.”

Aveline only nodded.

\--

Carver’s voice roused him from unpleasant thoughts.

“All right asshole – time to eat something,” Carver said. He tossed a dingy tin plate at his brother’s feet as he threw himself down at his side, back to the wall, hands on his knees. Hawke couldn’t remember the last time he had had an appetite, but his brother wore that damned mulish look of his, and so he reached for the plate anyway. They were silent as he lifted the fork.

Once the storms hit, the Fereldan refugees had all been confined to the lower decks of the ship that was to take them to Kirkwall. The sweating, stinking, fearful mass of humanity had spent the journey cramped together in close quarters, huddled and near silent in the face of the terror they were fleeing. It was miserable and dank, and more than a few refugees found their bellies ill-suited to the turbulence of the waves as storm after storm lashed the small vessel. Hawke had managed to stake out a spot for what remained of his family near one of the grates in the deck above, so at least, for them, there were occasional bursts of fresh sea air, but ultimately the benefits were minimal. Today the rains had stopped, or at least paused, and there was a chance of sunlight. It had been at least a dozen days since any of them had been completely dry.

The red flannel Hawke wore had once belonged to his father. It was an indescribable combination of brown and grey now, and would probably never be red again. It was the only thing in the world he owned. He lifted the fork, and hardly tasted what he put in his mouth.

“What do you want?” he asked his brother.

“Mother thinks you won’t forgive her,” Carver said. “For what she said. About Bethany.”

Hawke didn’t look at him. He lifted the fork again, but his stomach rebelled, and he put it back down without a second taste. His hands were rough and cracked and filthy. He hardly felt human.

Carver was watching him.

“It shouldn’t have been her,” Carver said.

“No,” Hawke it agreed. “It shouldn’t.”

Carver hesitated, fidgeting a little, uncomfortable. It had been years since they were close enough for a heart to heart.

“You know Mother didn’t mean it,” Carver said at last. “She doesn’t – no one thinks it’s your fault. All right? So just – stop avoiding her. Us. Do you think your grief is more important than ours?”

He didn’t answer at first. It was a long time before he trusted himself to. “I’m not avoiding anyone,” Hawke said eventually. “I’m…thinking.”

“Thinking,” Carver repeated. “You’re such a – do you even realize I’m trying to help?”

The boat dipped and lurched. A part of Hawke wondered if perhaps Kirkwall had never existed at all. Perhaps it was a lie. “I don’t need your help,” Hawke said. “But I appreciate the thought.”

“You’re such an ass,” Carver said, and he pushed himself to his feet. Hawke watched his brother storm away, watched how Carver wore his grief like a cape, wrapped it around himself for anyone to see. He had always had more freedom with his emotions than Hawke or Bethany could allow themselves. Hawke doubted his brother would ever know how lucky he was for that – or how much Hawke envied that luck.

“He’s an interesting one, your brother,” Aveline said, across from him. “You can tell he loves you very much, Leopold.”

“It’s Hawke,” he corrected automatically.

“Hawke,” she said. She watched him, silent for a time, and accepted the plate when he offered it to her. “You’re worried about Kirkwall, Hawke?” she asked at last.

“I’m worried about a lot of things,” he said.

A smile flickered briefly. Aveline didn’t wear the look his neighbors in Lothering had given him after his father’s death. That mixture of pity and fascination and curiosity was lacking in her expression.

So it surprised him when she said, “Your sister seemed like a good woman.”

“I don’t want to talk about Bethany,” Hawke said, and it was the truth.

Aveline fell silent. She turned the food over on the plate, and it was Hawke’s turn to watch, to gather the thread of his thoughts and untangle it into something recognizable.

“What do you plan to do when you get to Kirkwall?” he heard himself ask.

“I haven’t planned that far ahead yet,” she confessed.

“I can’t afford not to,” he said. “My only concern right now is taking care of Carver and mother. What happened to Bethany – that will have to be something I deal with later.”

“Can you afford to wait?” she asked. “Ignore sadness and it tends to fester. There’s no harm in acknowledging it.” She set the plate down without eating anything. Perhaps it was just as unappetizing to her as it had been to him. When she looked at him, her gaze was uncomfortably frank. “I know you heard me crying that first night on the boat,” she said.  “It was noble of you not to mention it – but I’m not ashamed of my feelings. I miss my husband. I will go on.”

“Bethany was my responsibility,” he said. The words surprised him; he hadn’t meant to voice them.

He’d sounded like his father.

“You saved us, Hawke,” Aveline said. “Without you, it would have been much more than Wesley and your sister we lost on that mountain. Try to keep that in mind, will you?”

He didn’t answer. He let his head fall back against the wall as she rose, as she left him alone to his silence and his thoughts.

His mother had cried every night since Bethany had died. She was tired, grayer, older, her eyes red and sunken into her face. He’d caused that. He’d failed.

But he’d have time to think about that later – after they were safe in Kirkwall.

Somewhere above, the skies parted. The warmth of the sun felt alien against his skin.


	7. Price

The day they spotted land, Carver woke up seasick.

The storms had let up a day or so before, and the refugees were at last being allowed up out of the hold. Carver didn’t have time to appreciate the fresh sea air or the pink milky sunrise as he rushed to the side of the ship to quite thoroughly lose what little he’d had in his stomach.

He was hanging over the side of the boat an hour later, dry heaving and watching blurry-eyed as Kirkwall grew larger and larger on the horizon, when what was left of his family made their way to him.

It was Flower who found him, barking and dancing around his feet until Leo’s stern voice called him back.

“Carver, take off your pants,” his mother said by way of greeting. “We’re going to do laundry.”

“Laun - ? Oh, forget it.” He was too tired to argue. Somehow they had gotten hold of some buckets and even some soap. Carver sat on the deck in his dingy grey smallclothes and concentrated on not getting sick again as Leo hauled bucket after bucket up from the ocean.

His brother had stripped down to his undershirt, and the thick northern heat quickly brought sweat beading on his brow as he worked. His large bare arms drew more than a few admiring looks from passengers and crew alike, though Carver’s lingering greenish tint kept anyone from approaching. They would have been wasting their time, in any case. After a brief promiscuous stint in his early teenhood had culminated in an extremely embarrassing encounter in their family’s barn, Leo had gone rather frigid. If he’d touched another person since then, Carver wasn’t aware of it.

“It’s going to be so nice to be home,” Mother said, as she scrubbed Leo’s old flannel. “You children are going to love the estate. And our townhome is simply the sweetest little place. My mother kept a great trellis in the courtyard, and every night the flowers would bloom and fill the air with fragrance.”

“It hardly seems real we’ve made it this far,” Aveline said. She rubbed a cloth along a freckled arm, fighting with weeks of grime. “Well – if I’m honest, none of what came before feels quite real, either.”

“The captain said we won’t disembark until tomorrow,” Leo said. “We’ll see how real this is, then.”

“Do you think the trellis might still be there?” Leandra asked. Their ordeal had aged her, left her thinner, frailer, grayer, but in the weak morning light, her eyes clear and bright with the first hint of hope any of them had felt since Lothering, she almost looked a girl again. The sea breeze picked up her hair, and she lifted her face with a fragile smile. “Your uncle never was one for gardening,” she said, “But oh, was it ever lovely! Bethany will just adore - !”

She stopped and didn’t continue, but the damage had been done. The name had slipped out without thought, and its effect was like clouds rolling in to cover the sun. Carver felt something cold and sharp in his chest, and Leo grew stiff, losing what little expression he’d worn. Leandra bent her head, scrubbing furiously at Leo’s old flannel. Under her care and a cloud of filth, it began to resemble the color red again.

Their work took up the morning and much of the afternoon, the sun warm and welcome as they washed as much as they could without resorting to public nudity. Carver’s stomach eventually settled, and the mood of the group seemed considerably lifted by the time they stopped for lunch.

They sat together on the deck in their various states of undress, conversing quietly as they picked meal worms from their bread.

“Sleeping in a real bed again,” Carver said. “That’s the first thing I want to do.”

“Seconded,” Aveline said. She lifted her cup in salute. Weak, bitter beer was the only thing on board still safe to drink. “A real bed with a real pillow, thank you. And a change of clothes. I’m tired of smelling like a wet mabari.” Flower cocked his head and whined, and she gave a chuckle. “No offense intended.”

“He forgives you,” Leo said. He stretched out an arm to scratch the mabari’s head. Instead the beast flopped over onto his back, exposing his belly.

“Some war dog,” Carver said.

“He tries,” Hawke said.

“What about you, Hawke?” Aveline asked.

He scratched thoughtfully at Flower’s belly, and was quiet for a long moment.

“I try, too,” he said at last.

Aveline smiled, but corrected him. “I meant what do you want to do first when we get to Kirkwall?”

Leo’s lips lifted, a ghost of a smile crossing his stern face briefly before he dropped his head. “Have a real drink,” he said. “Something that doesn’t taste like day-old piss.”

“Fresh piss would be better?” Carver asked.

“One would assume,” Leo said.

\--

They docked before noon the next day.

Incoming ships were being funneled through a place cheerfully named the Gallows, a dreary looking place watched over by the downturned faces of dozens of statues of slaves in varying states of anguish. The docks where they landed were crowded, rank with the smells of unwashed bodies, rotting fish, and overflowing garbage.

But the ground stayed in place when Carver walked, and the Blight was far away.

“Oh, it’s such a relief to be home,” his mother sighed, as Flower, thrilled with the sudden freedom of solid ground, barked and bounded around them, then took off to chase a large rat into a pile of garbage.

“He’ll need another bath,” Carver said, watching him.

“We all will,” Leo said, but he sounded distracted. When Carver glanced at him, he found his brother frowning, chin lifted as the molten gold of his eyes scanned the overcrowded wharf. He had a hand on their mother’s elbow to support her – an automatic, thoughtless gesture.

It was Aveline who put words to the problem Carver had barely noticed.

“They’re not letting anyone into the city,” she said.

Mother’s smile faltered, and slowly fell away. “What?” she asked. “That can’t be!”

“It’s true,” Aveline said. “Look at them all.”

Carver followed her gaze. Growing up mostly in little land-locked Lothering, he had little experience with sea travel, but the number of people here seemed much more than should have been warranted, even with a Blight sending travelers in droves.

Unease tugged at him. Reaching their destination had seemed too good to be true – and maybe it was. Maybe –

He looked at his mother, her eyes grown wide, her hands like nervous birds. Leo was no help, his eyes on the crowds, his face like stone. Carver shoved his doubts to the side, tucked them away for later. He took a breath, and tried to make himself look taller.

“Are we really surprised?” Carver asked. “Everyone’s fleeing the Blight. Just as we are.”

“And they would throw us all back to the wolves,” Aveline said. Her voice was soft, but held that knowing edge she had. She was a realist, and not given to pretty falsehoods. “Unbelievable.”

“We’re getting into the city,” Leo stated. “One way or another.”

Carver didn’t like the look in his brother’s eyes. He looked as if he was ready to level the walls of the city and force their way in.

Mother knew that expression, too. “We need to find Gamlen,” she reminded him. “Our family has always been highly regarded in Kirkwall. He can do something. I’m sure of it.”

“Let’s just hope he got your letter,” Carver said before he thought better of it. A muscle in his brother’s jaw jumped.

Aveline took a breath and began to stride forward, making a path for herself through the crowd. “The guards seem to be reporting to that man,” she said as they followed, indicating a soldier who seemed to be the subject of an uncomfortable amount of attention. “Perhaps we should speak to him.”

Leo moved past her, taking the lead naturally, as he so often did. “I’ll take care of it,” he said.

The guard was young, but seemed to be attending his duty with a bored kind of confidence. He knew he had the upper hand, but also knew this task wasn’t the sort of thing to boost his career, and so the power held over the lives of those seeking entry into the city hadn’t gone to his head. Yet, anyway.

“Get back to the crowd, you lot,” he called, bored, annoyed. “Trying to bully your way through won’t get you into Kirkwall any faster!”

“But you do intend to let us in?” Aveline asked.

Carver didn’t like the sound of the man’s laugh. “We have enough poor of our own in the Free Marches,” the guard said. “We don’t need you refugees piling up here like a midden heap!”

“Why aren’t we being allowed into the city?” Leo demanded.

The guard looked him up and down, taking his measure. Leo was a large man, tall and sturdily built, muscled from years of work on their father’s farm. He knew how to loom, how to use those big shoulders and dark glower to discourage those who might otherwise have gotten in his way.

But he had had a long journey, and the impromptu sponge bath on the deck yesterday had done little to improve his ragged appearance.

“If it were up to me,” the guard said, “I’d bar the gates and let you find somewhere else to beg.” He spat, and it came close to hitting Leo’s shoe. “But it’s not. Some of you might have legitimate business in the city, so Knight-Commander Meredith wants us to sort you all out. Most of you are getting right back on your ships, though.”

“Oh!” Mother covered her mouth quickly with her hands, but not before the distressed sound escaped. Leo glanced briefly at his mother, then back to the guard.

“That’s a templar title,” he said. “Why would a city guard answer to templars?”

The guard frowned, fidgeted a little, and glanced back behind himself before answering. “We _don’t_ answer to her,” he said, displeased with his own answer. “But…she’s the power in Kirkwall. I don’t know what would happen if the Viscount went against something she wanted, but he’s sure never taken the chance.”

Leo worked his jaw for a moment, rolled his shoulders. For the first time the guard seemed to take note. When Leo suddenly smiled, the guard drew back a little. “There must be someone in charge I can speak with,” Leo said, reasonably. He looked like the bear in one of the tales they’d heard as children, trying to smile pretty so Little Blue Hood would step between his teeth.

“Yes, yes, always the same story,” the guard said. He tried to puff himself up, realized it wasn’t enough, and faltered. Finally he relented. “You want in, talk to Captain Ewald. I’m just here to keep you refuse from climbing the walls.”

Leo’s attempt at a smile fell away, and he didn’t answer him. He bumped the guard’s shoulder as he brushed past. Carver hurried to catch up.

“Maybe you should let me handle interacting with other people from now on,” Carver hissed. Leo looked surprised.

“I thought it went rather well.”

“And now you’re going to try the same act with his captain?” Carver demanded. “Do I need to point out to you why that’s a bad idea?”

Leo glanced at him then, a sidelong, frowning look. “I said we were getting in, and I meant it.”

\--

Carver found his brother seated on the steps of a boarded up building that faced the docks, his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped before him. His expression was dark. Leo looked fearsome enough to dissuade strangers from approaching, all shaggy-headed and filthy and tense. Carver looked at him and only felt annoyance.

“How long are you going to sit here and sulk?” he demanded.

Leo didn’t so much as glance his way. “I’m not sulking,” he said. His eyes scanned the ocean. The waves were choppy today, frothing up white and brown. There was another storm on the horizon.

“We were lucky to get this deal,” Carver said. He stepped bodily into his brother’s line of sight, forcing him to look at him. “What are you doing? How long do you think Athenril is going to wait?”

The captain of the guard had refused to allow them entrance into Kirkwall, but after some persuasion he eventually agreed to track down their uncle. It took days for Gamlen to be located – day in which the Hawke family was stranded on the Gallows docks, without food and without shelter.

“Only a little longer,” their mother said, when they discussed finding a way to book passage on another ship. “We’ll have everything we need once we get inside the city.”

Leo and Aveline tried to pick up odd jobs to ease their wait, but the competition was fierce, and of the few people willing to hire refugees, none would give anything close to a fair wage. Carver fared a little better picking up card games with some of the city guards, but lost most of his winnings in fines when the brothers were caught attempting to fish.

“Only a little longer,” Leandra promised, and when Gamlen finally found them, for the briefest of moments it seemed her words would prove true.

Except uncle Gamlen couldn’t buy their way into Kirkwall as they’d hoped.

The family fortune was gone.

That very well could have been the end of them then and there, but uncle Gamlen, a greasy man with shifty eyes and dirty fingernails, was not without resources. He found for them two organizations willing to pay their way and provide livable wages in return for one year of servitude.

Of course it was shoddy and illegal – but a few days starving outside the Gallows had proven that they didn’t exactly have the luxury of being picky. Leo was an apostate sleeping, literally, at the templars’ front door. A little illegal activity was a fine price to pay if it meant buying them a little bit of distance.

Athenril was the natural choice. The elven woman ran a smuggling ring with the numbers and clout to keep the templars off their backs while they found their footing in the City of Chains. They didn’t even have to know what it was they were moving – just that they were getting paid. Carver’s conscience could rest easy enough with that.

Leo released a breath slowly, and he rolled his big shoulders. He leaned back, elbows on the stair above him, and tilted his head to examine the carving on the Tevinter-style archway under which he rested.

“I think this building must have been a processing warehouse once,” Leo said, his voice low and thoughtful. “A place to examine the slaves brought in by the ships before they went on to auction.”

“I should care?”

“Kirkwall isn’t Lothering,” Leo said. “It doesn’t have the same history or follow the same rules. A man doesn’t make his name on the nature of how hard he works. It’s the strength in his fist, not his back, that determines his place. Father told me that once. I think I understand.”

Carver stared at him a moment before his words caught up to him. “What in Andraste’s name are you on about?” he demanded at last. “What does this have to do with working for Athenril?”

Leo didn’t answer him for a long moment. When he rose, his expression was dark.

“I’m not working for Athenril,” he said.

\--

In a brief, private moment, Hawke stopped, closed his eyes, and reminded himself, again, of what was at stake.

The crack of his staff against a human skull was worlds away from the softer rotting mush of a Darkspawn cranium, and Hawke could still feel the terrible shock of it vibrating up his arms and into his shoulders. He could still smell the terrible singe of burning flesh and hair. Alive. Human.

_Well, not anymore._

Hawke, contrary to his looks, was not a violent man. Knowing all too well how easy it would be to reach for his magic and the unfair – not to mention dangerous – advantage it represented, his father had taught him from a very young age to avoid fights at any cost. There was a gentle nature behind his gruff exterior.

But now there was a body on the ground.

Hawke stared at the dead nobleman, and he felt dizzy. He hadn’t known the man, hadn’t known if the hit on him was truly justified or not. But he had decided, hadn’t he? He had decided that his life, and the lives of his family, were worth more.

His hands held a fine tremor. They were still splattered with blood. He felt eyes on him, and when he looked up, his brother was watching him.

“I hope you’re happy now, brother,” Carver said.

He stared back. He felt cold. He flexed his hands. They no longer felt like his own.

Carver was the first to look away. “What would Bethany think of us?” he asked. His voice was bitter.

Aveline had fought with them, but she was silent now, her expression sour. She wouldn’t look at him.

Hawke took a deep breath, but the words he wanted to speak caught in his throat. Excuses. He had made his decision. He had made _their_ decision.

Nothing had gone right since the moment they had turned their backs on Lothering. He hadn’t listened to his gut before, and they’d left too late. Bethany would still be alive if he hadn’t hesitated. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

For his family to survive Kirkwall, he would have to stomach doing whatever was necessary to keep them safe. That included, if he had anything like luck left to him at all, earning a reputation as someone not to be trifled with.

The smugglers couldn’t give him that. It was that simple.

And that damning.

When he closed his hand into a fist, he felt the nobleman’s warm blood squelch between his fingers. His heart felt like ice. He offered up no reasons, no excuses. He didn’t point out how they had followed him, fought at his side without question – how neither of them had tried for even a moment to convince him to take the easier path.

Perhaps it might have been different if they had.

“Don’t bother me with that now,” Hawke snapped. He turned from the body, from the man he had killed. Somehow his legs kept holding him up. “We should speak the Meeran before the guards come.”

 


	8. The Red Iron

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a bear to write, but I thought it was important. I hope the slower pace isn't too trying. I promise we'll get to all of our friends as soon as we can.

Meeran had a gaze like a well-experienced tax collector.

That is, his eyes – hard and pitiless, the flat grey of a sky that promised a storm – those eyes could take flesh from bone and determine the approximate weight and value of your kidney before you finished walking through the door.

Meeran understood people – but only in the darkest of ways. He knew what it would take to convince a parent to sell their newborn to slavers, and how much ale would cause the dock foreman to rat on a smuggling contract, but he was completely baffled by concepts like charity, or mercy, or kindness. Everything in the world was bottom line for him – everything was an angle to leverage for profit.

There were time Hawke feared a day would come when looking at Meeran became like looking in a mirror. Hawke understood the man, and how he operated. The distressing truth of it was, it was all too easy to see what needed to be done and to do it, regardless of who it harmed.

Mercifully, that day had yet to come. Hawke wasn’t sure what Meeran saw when he looked at him – only that the man didn’t like it. On nights when the faces of the dead haunted his vision and guilt stole his sleep, that thought was often his only comfort.

“So,” Meeran was the first to break the silence that stretched between them. His tone was brisk. “I suppose you have another one of your excuses for why my orders were not followed?”

“I ignore a lot of your orders,” Hawke said. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

Meeran’s office was a dark, cramped place. Once part of a larger room, it had been walled off when the Lowtown building had been converted into cheap tenant housing. Barely more than a closet, it was only accessible through a secret door, and it boasted a large window. The yellowing, bubbled glass offered a dim and blurry view of the world outside.

Meeran’s desk took up most of the room, and his chair, trophies, and knickknacks claimed much of what was left. He liked furniture, particularly lamps, and little Orlesian figurines.

What he didn’t like, evidently, was Hawke’s answer.

“The job got done, didn’t it?” Hawke demanded.

Meeran’s eyes narrowed. “You were supposed to bring Borald along with you.”

“Your pet new recruit?” Hawke asked. “I’ll be damned if he’s a day past thirteen.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“This was a killing job.”

Meeran snorted, amused, until he realized Hawke was not joking. “The lad signed a contract,” he said. “Past time he learned what we were about.”

Hawke crossed his arms. “It doesn’t matter, anyway,” he said. “My brother and I work alone.”

“You do, perhaps,” Meeran said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hawke demanded, but he already knew the answer. Carver was a trained soldier. Despite his early reservations, he had fallen into their work much more comfortably than Hawke liked. He spent more time among the Red Iron than Hawke did, and had taken to picking up extra jobs – often without even telling his brother.

The knowledge of all this was held in Meeran’s eyes, but he didn’t voice it. Instead, he said, “Your contract is up in two weeks. Have you given any thought to what you and that brother of yours will do then?”

“Live honest lives,” Hawke answered, and again an uncomfortable moment passed wherein Meeran made the mistake of thinking he was anything but utterly serious.

“Fereldans don’t have an easy go of it here in Kirkwall,” Meeran said at last. “Wouldn’t it be better to stay on here? You’re a pain in my ass, but you get results – you know how to kill, and you know how to keep it quiet. If only you’d stop bucking your head against every order you’re given, get a little less sensitive about the kinds of jobs you take on - ”

“Forget it,” Hawke said. He rose.

Meeran was frowning. “Don’t be so quick to reject my generosity,” he said. “Once your debt to me is paid, your cut will almost double, you know. Your family could be quite comfortable on what you’d be bringing home – and more importantly, you’d have the entire weight and backing of the Red Iron to discourage anyone from taking note of your little…affliction.”

“My affliction and I will manage on our own,” Hawke stated. “We’re done here.”

As he headed through the trap door, he heard Meeran mutter something unflattering about ‘mule-headed dog-lords.’ It didn’t improve his mood. He nodded tightly to Meeran’s guards as he passed. Whatever they saw in his expression had them straightening their backs and tensing their shoulders. Hawke barely noticed.

Hawke had set out with the intent of earning for himself a reputation. Nearly a year after first setting foot in the city, he had had some degree of success. His face and temper were recognizable enough in the underworld that he didn’t have to worry overmuch about his mother’s safety living in Lowtown. Few cutpurses and cat burglars were willing to risk his retaliation, and those who were learned quickly their mistake.

There was no telling how well that would hold up once he was on his own, though. He could only hope it would be enough.

The halls of the tenant building were narrow and poorly ventilated, the air thick with Kirkwall’s summer heat. Here, apartments were crammed, sometimes with three or four families per room. The back half of the building had been cut from the mountain, and was little better than the system of caves and tunnels it originated as.

To fit through the narrow stone corridors, Hawke nearly had to turn completely sideways, and it made for awkward moments when he had to pass someone. Carver refused to enter the building. He hated the screams of hungry babies and the stink of rotting garbage as the sounds and smells of Kirkwall’s working class assaulted every step. Hawke merely considered it a reminder.

In Kirkwall, the only people worse off than those whose doors he now passed were the elves in the alienage or those wretches down in Darktown. Hawke could see, too clearly, how quickly and how easily his family could fall, could lose even the questionable comfort of Gamlen’s home.

Many of the apartments had their doors flung wide in attempt to provide some circulation of air. Passing one of these, Hawke accidentally met the dark, hungry yes of a child. Rather than playing, as someone her age ought to, she was sitting, covered in dust from the mines and trying to feed a squalling toddler.

Hawke left a coin on her doorstop. Something wet dripped from the ceiling and down into his collar as he turned for the stairwell.

Outside the Kirkwall sun poured down, heavy and relentless, making the thick pressing heat of the tenant building seem cool in comparison. Even still, something loosened in relief in Hawke’s chest. He paused, his eyes briefly closing as he let himself enjoy for a moment the comparative space, He tried to imagine he was back in his father’s fields, laughing with Carver as Bethany tried to steer the mule. If not for the persistent smell of piss and sweat, he might have succeeded.

Hawke only gave himself a moment to linger in the memory of green sun-spattered fields and Bethany’s giggles before he pushed it all aside, buried it deep where the blood and the waste of his less-happy reality could not tarnish it.

Hawke found his brother in the shade of the alley beside Meeran’s building. Carver and several of the other members of the Red Iron had a card game going, perched precariously atop crates of goods that had “fallen off” a caravan a rival gang had been hired to protect.

Hawke hadn’t been a part of that particular raid, but Carver had, sneaking out against his brother’s wishes and not returning until the following evening, injured and drunk and reeking of the perfume of cheap whores. He’d laughed off his brother’s anger, then retreated into sullen silence after Hawke lobbed a quick, dirty healing spell his way.

Something hurt, twisting dark and painful and guilty in Hawke’s gut every time Hawke saw his brother laughing and drinking with the other mercenaries. Some were men like them, it was true, pushed by desperation to perform unspeakable acts – but far too many seemed to enjoy the work. The line between necessity and adventure seemed drawn far too thin for the skinned-knee boy Hawke saw when he looked at his surviving sibling.

“Hawke!” one of the mercenaries spotted him, greeting him cheerfully enough, although more than one smile grew wan at the sight of him. “Come to join up, have you?”

“No.”

“My brother wouldn’t know fun if it bit him on the ass,” Carver said. The men glanced at Hawke, uncomfortable with laughing at the joke in front of its subject. Carver didn’t notice how the mood had started to turn. He won his hand with a whoop and a cheer.

“Carver,” Hawke said. “Finish up. We’re leaving.”

“Are you kidding?” Carver laughed. “I’m on a roll here!”

“We’re done here,” Hawke said.

Carver ignored him. “Who’s dealing?” he asked. “Benni?”

“Carver,” Hawke said.

“In a minute.”

“I said now,” Hawke said. He didn’t think about it, stepping forward to haul his brother to his feet like a child. Carver kicked over his makeshift table on his way up, sending coins and cards flying as the other men watched.

Hawke regretted his choice immediately – more for the burn of shame on his brother’s face than for the swing Carver took at him upon regaining his balance.

“You flaming asshole!” Carver shouted as Hawke avoided the blow. The other men were watching. “I said shove off!”

They stared at each other. Carver was breathing heavily. Hawke’s protectiveness warred with his temper.

“Fine,” Hawke said at last, biting the word out before anything more harmful could escape. He released his brother’s arm with something like a shove, and turned away.

\--

“So… I heard you told Meeran to piss off again.”

Hawke’s eyes were burning as he lifted them from the stack of paperwork he’d spent the better half of the night on. Bills, invoices, threatening letters – Hawke had hoped to have his uncle’s affairs settled by the time he left service with the Red Iron, but after nearly a year of effort, the mountain of debt remained a beast that would not be wrangled. Keeping collectors from breaking Gamlen’s shins felt like a full time job in its own right.

Outside, it was dark as pitch; Hawke had no idea how late the hour had grown. In the doorway, framed by the fitful greasy glow of Gamlen’s cheap lamps, Carver looked unsure and uncomfortable. Also, muddy.

“You’ve been fighting again,” Hawke said. It wasn’t a question. He turned back to his task.

Carver gave a little, somewhat less-than-sober laugh. “You should see the other guy,” he said.

Hawke closed his eyes and he deliberately counted to ten. He released his breath slowly, and managed to say, patiently, “You should get some rest. We’ve an early morning tomorrow.”

“Not that shit at the docks.”

“Yes that shit at the docks.”

“Leo!”

“It’s honest work, and it pays.”

“Not well!” Carver said. “Not half so well as the Red Iron! Brother!” Carver came around to the desk, slamming his hands down hard enough to topple the inkwell. Hawke barely managed to divert disaster. Carver seemed utterly oblivious to how hard he was working to keep his temper in check. “We have a _place_ with the Red Iron if we want it!”

Hawke tossed his pen down and sat back hard in his seat, crossing his arms as he stared hard at Carver. “If we want it,” he repeated.

“Yes!”

“All right,” Hawke said, as slowly and patiently as he could manage. It felt like chewing rocks. “Explain to me, then, why we should want it.”

“The pay - !” Carver began, but Hawke interrupted him.

“Explain to me,” he said, “Why we should continue to kill for coin, now that our obligation is through and our situation less desperate. Explain to my why we should have our father’s name associated with senseless murder for a single moment longer than we have to.”

“Expl - ? You’re the one who put us in this position!”

Hawke stared at him. Something inside him hurt. “I know,” he said.

“And the templars – half the city knows you’re an apostate by now! Without the Red Iron…we’re going to need coin to keep you free, and lots of it.”

“I’m aware of that, too.”

“And you still - ?”

Hawke inclined his head. Carver cursed.

Carver was the first to look away. He took a deep breath, puffing himself up – then deflated as he exhaled. “You are a stubborn asshole,” he said.

“So I’ve been told.”

“I hate this,” Carver said. “I’ve hated every moment in this Blight-taken city. I hate what it’s done to you. I hate what it’s done to me! I – all right, okay? You win. Again.”

“Carver…”

He pushed away from the desk, raking his hands through his hair. “I’ll be there tomorrow, all right? Bright and damned bleeding early.”

“Thank you, Carver.”

“Bleeding idiot is what I am,” Carver said, heading for the door. “I could make it on my own, you know. I don’t need you.”

“All right, Carver.”

At the door, he swung back around, his eyes red and his hair on end. He said, “And if you ever, _ever_ grab me in front of my friends again, there _will_ be a reckoning!”

“Go to bed, Carver.”

“Ass.”

“Dick.”

He made a rude gesture, but seemed somewhat more mollified as he stormed away. Hawke thought a warning Aveline had recently given him was rapidly proving all-too true: praying to the Maker for patience only meant having that patience tested more often.

He pushed the thought to the side, and reached for the next bill.

 


	9. Dockhands

Carver slammed through Gamlen’s back door so hard that it bounced off the opposite wall and swung back lopsided on its hinges.

“Good morning to you, too, little brother.”

“I swear by all that is holy,” Carver seethed, “If you don’t stop that racket, I’m turning you over to the templars myself.”

He caught the reflection of Leo’s brief, close-lipped smile in the foggy scrap of mirror he had propped up on the bench. “You used to like my singing, Carver,” Leo said.

“Dying cats don’t like your singing,” Carver spat.

Gamlen’s back yard was nothing more than a small, semi-private square of dirt behind his home – which was more than what most Lowtown residents could lay claim to. It boasted the twisted, stunted remains of a long-dead apple tree, a broken fence, and a frequently-clogged water pump that was meant to service not only Gamlen’s household, but his neighbor’s as well. A wooden bench, a leaky tub, and a rather decent bucket rounded out the grand courtyard.

It was that bucket which Leo was using to prop up the mirror. Straddling the bench in his worn work pants and boots, familiar red flannel flung over one shoulder, he was fully immersed in the task of trimming his beard with mother’s prized sewing scissors.

And singing.

“Sleep well, did you?” Leo asked, as Carver stalked forward to snatch the bucket. Toppling the little mirror while his brother was trying to use it wasn’t nearly so satisfying when Leo was in such an unusually cheerful mood. Carver only earned a raised brow for his efforts.

“Har har – Carver has a hangover,” Carver said. “Laugh it up now. It just means you’ll have to do more of the work later.”

“How is that any different than any other day?”

“Hilarious!” Carver’s head did indeed feel as if it had taken a darkspawn axe or seven, and his stomach – well, best not to think about his poor stomach. It wasn’t worth bothering to ask Leo for healing, because Leo was too much like their father; he thought there was a lesson to be had in suffering through this kind of ailment, even if they did have to work. Carver tossed the bucket down and began working the pump. The first few splashes of water were murky and greenish.

“I’ll buy you a greasy breakfast on the way,” Leo promised, picking up the mirror. “You’ll be fine.”

“Why are you so happy this morning, anyway? We both know you didn’t get laid.” As soon as the water ran mostly clear, Carver ducked his head under it.

He didn’t expect his brother to answer, but Leo did.

“We’re going to work very hard for most of the day, for very little pay,” Leo said.

“And that makes you feel…what? Nostalgic?”

“It makes me feel,” Leo said, “Like this nightmare of a year is over and it’s time for our real lives to begin again.”

“Right,” Carver said. “Hauling fish carcasses to poorly ventilated warehouses is a happy indication of what real life should look like now. I see.”

“Sweat and muscle and no blood.”

“The fish probably bleed.”

Leo used a towel to wipe excess hairs off his torso, and left it on the bench for Carver to use as he rose and donned his shirt. He gave Carver something that, for Leopold Hawke, probably passed as a grin.

“Finish washing up and get dressed,” Leo said. “I’ll be out front.”

They didn’t actually have the job at the docks yet. Carver had yet to even meet their prospective employer. With two weeks left in their contract with the Red Iron, Carver and Leo couldn’t very well sign on to work for someone else yet.

Carver didn’t want to think about how long his brother must have been shopping around for other opportunities for them. Today’s job was merely an audition of sorts – work for a few hours, and if the foreman liked how they operated, there would be a place for them in two weeks. If he didn’t –

Well, Carver reasoned, two sturdy farm boys hardly needed to worry about _if not_. They were strong, and they knew how to work. Anyway, there was no reason they couldn’t keep looking for something better. It had taken Aveline nearly six months before she was accepted into the city guards. Though Leo couldn’t join up, for obvious reasons, Carver had begun to think about acquiring an interview for himself. If Aveline put a good word in for him…

Carver smiled to himself, splashing his face, and almost made the mistake of getting some of the water in his mouth. He imagined Leo wouldn’t be pleased to find out Carver had made arrangements behind his back, but it was really the best step up from the Red Iron. Carver wasn’t built for mindless physical labor like Leo was. He preferred jobs that tested skills and smarts. Once he brought home his first big pay Leo would have to understand.

It was Carver’s turn to take care of the family.

When Carver found his brother out front, Leo had already secured several skewers of meat from one of the Lowtown food carts near the market. The meat was tough and unidentifiable – probably rat – but the grease ran in hot rivulets down their fingers as they ate. There was also strong bitter coffee in dented tin mugs that they could return to the cart later for a discount. Leo was in a good mood indeed if he was splurging what little coin they had in such a way. Carver was feeling much better by the time they made their way down to the docks.

\--

“ – four times,” Carver swore, as he and the other dock workers used a system of pullies and ropes to ease the load over the ship’s side and lower it to the ground. It was a kind of platform which held a dozen barrels filled to bursting with layers of fish and salt. He thought he might have been starting to get the hang of it. “I swear,” he said. “She was so grateful, she insisted on giving me my money back!”

The other men laughed – that companionable, masculine sound of a group of men just being men, Carver thought. It felt good. He liked to be a part of a group. He felt like a king as he rolled a barrel down off the platform and followed the others into the warehouse.

The sun was low on the horizon, stretching long fingers of orange and purple across the sea. Carver’s hair was wet with sweat, his hangover long forgotten. He’d won almost three sovereigns at dice during their lunch break.

“What’s with that brother of yours, Hawke?” one of the men asked as they entered the relatively cooler shadows of warehouse B. Carver felt a guilty little thrill whenever someone called _him_ Hawke. There was really no reason Carver couldn’t use it. Leo had certainly never bothered to consult Carver before claiming it for himself.

“What do you mean?” Carver asked, even though he knew. Leo had gotten directly to work, without bothering to get to know the other fellows they were supposed to be working with. He hadn’t eaten with them, or traded stories, or gambled. The best that could be said was that he didn’t _quite_ terrify them – and he had Carver to thank for that. “He’s just shy, is all,” he said.

“Seems like a prick to me,” one of the men said. Danald, who was struggling to support a wife, an elven mistress, and five ungrateful kids. Carver had already heard all about it.

Carver frowned a little. “Well, he can be, yeah.”

Danald laughed and spat. “Just seems to think a lot of himself, is all I’m saying.”

“I mean – he’s moved almost three times as much as you have today.”

“Right,” another of the men, Hugh, agreed. “And what’s he mean by that? Show off like that, they’ll start expecting more from us. Tell him to slow up.”

“He’s just excited,” Carver said. “He likes to work.”

“Blighted asshole he is,” Danald said.

“Why don’t you lay off him?” Carver asked. “He wants to make a good impression.”

“He can impress these,” Hugh said, grabbing himself rudely. Carver saw red.

He wasn’t sure what happened. His fist hurt, and Hugh was on the ground. His rage had been sudden, and sharp.

Danald charged him, sent him crashing into the barrels. One chipped and burst, and they slipped, struggling amid the fish and the salt. Carver got a punch in. Two. Three. He heard shouting.

Someone grabbed him and he tried to throw them off without success. Leo hauled him bodily to his feet.

\--

Carver smelled like fish and sweat, his head was throbbing, and his ribs felt bruised.

Twilight had fallen across the docks, lit by the smoky orange of the foundry, and a few shy stars were waking up over the sea. Carver sat on a cold stone step, backside half numb as he tried to catch a glimpse at Leo arguing with the foreman through an office window. He could just barely make out their muffled shouting, which did not bode well for the brothers’ employment prospects.

He jumped when Leo finally emerged, slamming the door open and stomping down the stairs. The vein that stood out on his brother’s neck told him everything he needed to know.

They walked in silence for several blocks. It wasn’t late enough for any of the various street gangs to give them trouble yet, though Leo looked as if he would have been thrilled for anyone to try. His shoulders were tense, jaw set, back rigid.

“Look,” Carver said, as they neared Lowtown, with its cramped dark maze of streets dotted with the lights from strangers’ windows and heavy with the smell of cooking dinners. The predominant theme across households seemed to be, as it so often was, cabbage soup. “I’m sorry.”

It took effort to say. The words stung his tongue.

Leo didn’t answer him.

“You don’t know the whole story,” Carver said. He didn’t like how he sounded, like a child making excuses. “Can’t you just trust that he had it coming? That I wouldn’t have risked losing us this job if it wasn’t important?”

Leo rounded on him. “You didn’t lose _us_ the job, Carver,” he said. “They still wanted _me_.”

“And you…?” Carver felt suddenly drained. He stared at him. “You turned them down?”

Leo didn’t answer. He turned away and began to walk again, long legged strides that Carver’s stockier legs had trouble keeping up with.

He followed anyway.

“Are you mad?” Carver demanded. “I mean it – have you lost your flaming mind? You told them – Maker’s breath, brother! Go back and apologize! Tell them you changed your mind!”

“I will not.”

“I can go back to Meeran,” Carver said. “I’ll be happy there, and you can keep your clean conscience. Hey! Listen to me, burn you!” Carver grabbed his arm. Leo shoved him off, but he stopped, breathing heavily, furious.

“You can’t go back to the Red Iron,” Leo said.

“No? Give me one good reason – other than you suddenly feeling squeamish. I swear, brother, one good rea - !”

“They don’t want you without me there to mind you!” Leo shot, cutting him off.

Carver stared at him, and Leo stared back, hulking, furious, and, Carver realized, frightened. They needed this job. They were running out of options, as well as time. His words stung, and Carver watched that moment when Leo began to regret them.

Leo was the first to break eye contact, turning away, raking his hands through his hair. Carver swallowed and tried not to feel so much as if he’d been punched.

“That’s not true, is it?” he asked.

“Carver…”

“What…what did Meeran say?”

Leo stared skyward, his hands planted on his hips. There were no stars in Lowtown, the smoke from the foundry obscuring every last one, leaving its residents trapped in their bubble of filth like a vastly disappointing snow globe.

Carver stared at his brother, knowing he would get an answer only if he waited.

“Meeran said a lot of things I don’t care to repeat,” Leo said at last. “He was angry with me – he had words for our whole family.”

“But me,” Carver said. “What did he - ? This isn’t fair! I did good work!”

Leo looked at him at last, and Carver could see the regret etched onto his face, despite the brave attempts of that damned beard to hide it.

“Carver,” he said.

“No,” Carver insisted. “Tell me. Tell me right now, or I go ask him myself.”

Leo’s lips were a thin line, his eyes molten gold. But he nodded. “He didn’t trust your judgement,” he said. “He thinks you’re a fuck-up like Gamlen, that it’s only a matter of time before you’re a drunk, washed up failure spending too much time at the Rose, and he doesn’t want to take on that kind of liability without a guarantee of a safety net.”

Carver swallowed. His eyes burned as he stared at his brother. Leo didn’t look away.

“Did you punch him?” Carver asked.

“Almost.”

It felt like a blow. A betrayal. Carver swallowed again. “Did you defend me?”

“Of course I did,” Leo snapped.

This time, Carver was the one to look away, to stare at the sky and try to place the missing stars amid the haze. His pride and his jealousy felt like a hard lump in the back of his throat. He’d never felt so humiliated in his life.

When Leo spoke, his voice somehow managed to be both firm and uncharacteristically, infuriatingly, gentle. “Whatever we do – wherever we go – we do it together. I promise.”

Carver didn’t answer him. He had the most pressing urge to punch him, to bury his fist in his big stupid nose. “Don’t do me any favors,” he spat.

“Carver,” Leo said, moving so that he was forced to look at him. His expression was like stone. Carver wanted to hit him even more. “We’re blood. Blood is the only thing that matters in this world. Give me a chance – I’ll keep us alive. Whatever it takes.”

Carver didn’t trust himself to answer. He shook off the hand that reached for him. “Fine,” he said at length. “Yeah. All right. I’m with you, brother. For now.”

Something flickered in Leo’s face, but he accepted it, stepping back and looking away.


	10. Varric Tethras

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of game dialogue in this one. Sorry!! I hope it isn't too disruptive!

The sun poured down, bright and warm over Hightown, and the mansions glittered white in the late spring heat. Whereas Fereldan farmers might still find themselves concerned with the possibility of the odd frost, the Free Marches were green and fresh with new life, and the air was heavy with the smell of fragrant blooms.

Such things were easy to overlook in a place like Lowtown, with its high walls and cramped crowded streets, its overflowing gutters and flooding sewers, tainted water, and air that smelled, always, of ash. In Hightown, they were free of all that. In Hightown, there was space. In Hightown, things were clearer.

It irritated Carver, how clean the air was here – painfully clean, really. It hurt his nose. Colors were brighter in Hightown, music sweeter. If he were to purchase food here, Carver knew, it would taste better, keep his belly full longer.

They didn’t fill their bread with sawdust in Hightown. Pretentious assholes.

As if the thought of food summoned it, a low growl filled the air – not from Carver’s belly, but from his brother’s, beside him.

“Andraste’s tits, human! You know how many people want in on this expedition?” the dwarf they trailed was squat and round, with a hooked nose and a petulant sneer. His eyes were like blue glass – appraising and cold and careless of the lives of others. Bartrand Tethras was a business man, and like far too many in the city, had no interest in charity. The Hawke brothers had told him their situation was desperate.

He didn’t care.

Behind him, Carver and Leo exchanged a long look at his words. Carver waited, but Leo’s jaw was set, his eyes hard. His patience with the little man was rapidly approaching its end. It would be up to Carver to seal the deal, then.

“Look,” he said, picking up his pace. The dwarf wore a great deal of very cheap cologne, and it was hard not to wrinkle his nose while he talked to him.  Or maybe Carver had simply gotten too used to the aroma of sweat, sewage, and ash that permeated everyone in Lowtown. “We know you’re going into the Deep Roads. You’ll need the best, and we’re - ”

“No!” He rounded on them, those eyes of his cold. He showed no concern for Carver’s sword, or even Leo’s bulk. “You’re too late! Already done!”

“The money from this trip could fix everything!” Carver said, and hated the desperation in his voice. It had only been a month since their contract with Meeran came to its end, but things were already too tight. Mother had yet to notice, at least. Leo was clever at hiding from her just how close they were to hitting their breaking point, but Carver knew Leo had at least three gangs demanding payoffs from him, no fewer than two suspicious templars sniffing his tracks and, perhaps worst of all, Carver couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his brother eat. He’d be damned if he was sleeping more than two or three hours a night, too.

Leo was tired, and stressed, dark circles under his eyes, hands raw from manual labor. The odd jobs the brothers could find were like grains of sand against a desert, and Carver was terrified.

“You need us!” Carver told the dwarf, too desperate, almost begging. The words fell out of his mouth without permission. “We’ve fought darkspawn!”

Bartrand snorted, unimpressed. “Look, precious,” he sneered. “I don’t care if you tore the horns off an ogre with your bare hands.”

Carver threw up his hands. He paced away, angry, frustrated, frightened, raking his hands through his hair. He felt sick as he turned back, looking to Leo, and his frown, and his hard eyes.

“ _You_ make him understand!” Carver said. “We’re running from _your_ bloody templars!”

“I’m in charge,” Leo said. His voice was rough, as hard as Carver had ever heard it. “You do what I say!”

Carver was taken aback by the fire in his brother’s glare, the way he held his eyes, as if Carver was some child who needed to be made to understand important rules. For a moment it was a stranger who stood before him, and Carver felt cold.

“Right, brother,” he said at last.

Bartrand grunted, utterly unimpressed with them, and began to turn away when Leo spoke again.

“My brother can be a fool, but he’s right about this,” Leo said. “We _are_ what you need.”

Bartrand’s lip curled as he looked them over, those glassy eyes taking their weight and measurement like they were cattle at auction. “You’re looking for a quick way out of the slums, right? You and every other Fereldan in this dump. Find another meal ticket.” He jabbed a finger into Leo’s stomach, hard enough to make him grunt, and turned away without fear of retaliation – not up here in Hightown, where the sun shone on petty crimes of vengeance and the guards actually did their duty.

“Well….back to waiting for someone to turn us in,” Carver muttered. He looked at his brother, but Leo was still tight with anger. It was his first reaction to things, these days, stress pushing him past the point where once he might have at least stopped to consider his words. Carver was trying very, very hard to keep that in mind.

“Too many refugees disappear for you to threaten people who could help us!” Leo said, and Carver scowled.

“I know, okay? I just…how long do we work for scum who don’t want us around?” They were out of options. Yesterday Carver had spent nearly twelve hours clearing a field for a farmer, only to be treated to a locked farmhouse door and threats of calling the guards on him when he was done. He’d lost his last seven coppers at cards, and Leo wasn’t handing any more out.

They needed coin, status – something to keep people off their backs. And it wouldn’t hurt if they could shove it in that dwarf’s face while they were at it. The brothers walked in silence for a few streets, as guards watched their passage warily. When Carver stopped, Leo did too.

“What about uncle Gamlen?” Carver asked reluctantly.

Leo pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I wouldn’t trust him with a silver,” he mumbled, and Carver saw it again, the toll their position was taking on his brother, his exhaustion, his worry. He reminded himself to resist the urge to strange the mule-headed oaf in his sleep tonight. “Dear uncle’s at least as sleazy as that Bartrand.”

“How’s that for a compliment?” Carver asked, and felt something in him ease when his brother’s lips cracked a smile.

“It wasn’t meant as one,” Leo allowed. “Look….Carver….”

“What else can we do?” Carver asked. He brushed off the hand that reached for him. He couldn’t give Leo the chance to apologize for his hard words. It was already taking everything in him to ignore them as it was. He needed to think, not be angry at his brother. “We’re losing ground, and I don’t fancy waking up in the Gallows.”

Leo didn’t answer, glancing away. Somehow, instinctively, he knew where the Gallows was, wherever they were in the city. Carver felt cold as he watched his brother’s eyes settle in that direction, and he knew Leo was calculating, wondering how much longer they could hold out before turning himself in became the only viable option. Leo opened his mouth and Carver braced himself for words he had been dreading to hear, but before he could speak a youth hurried past, bumping him along the way.

It took Carver a moment to recognize him – a footpad from one of the Red Iron’s rivals. Without Meeran’s protection, the reputation he and his brother had earned for themselves only stretched so far. They had made a lot of enemies in their year of servitude, and those enemies were not wasting any time testing how far they could push them now.

Before he could suggest it, Leo’s hand strayed to his waist, found his money pouch gone.

“Hey!” he began, hard, dangerous, turning to give chase.

A crossbow bolt coming from seemingly nowhere took the boy in the shoulder, pinning him to the wall. It seemed to have hit mostly cloth, probably grazing skin but doing little real damage, yet the youth’s face went white and he struggled like a rabbit under the paw of a mountain lion as a dwarf approached, shouldering a crossbow.

“I knew a guy once who could take every coin out of your pockets just by smiling at you,” the dwarf said, his voice smooth, pleasant, conversational. He was beardless, and his open tunic displayed a wealth of thick, curling chest hair that put even Leo to shame. The dwarf smiled at the would-be thief, who froze, chest heaving, eyes huge. “But you? You don’t have the _style_ to work Hightown, let alone the Merchant’s Guild.”

“P…please…” the youth began, pale, sweating and the dwarf chuckled, spreading his hands like an amicable host doling out sweets.

“Might want to find yourself a new line of work,” the dwarf advised with a companionable wink. His fist connected with the lad’s jaw, and he knocked him out cold. “Off you go.”

He retrieved his bolt, twirling it between his fingers as he turned to the Hawke brothers, the youth slumping, forgotten, to the ground behind him. The dwarf gave a mockery of a jaunty bow, and flashed a devilish smile.

“How do you do?” he asked. “Varric Tethras, at your service!”

Carver hated him immediately.

A pack of seabirds passed overhead, calling to each other, squabbling in midair. A food cart passed, loaded with fragrant white bread that made Carver’s belly clench painfully. It took him a moment to realize that Leo had placed himself between him and this Varric.

“I apologize for Bartrand. He wouldn’t know an opportunity if it hit him squre in the jaw.”

“But you would?” Leo asked, flat, suspicious. Carver felt mollified, a bit, that his brother seemed to share his opinion of this too-convenient rescuer. He puffed himself up, rolling his shoulders, hoping the little man noticed the very large sword on his back.

The dwarf only smiled. “I would!” Varric said, and he sounded pleased, friendly, too smooth by half. “What my brother doesn’t realize is we _need_ someone like you.”

He waited for a beat, let his words sink in. Brother. We. Carver had to squint to see the resemblance, and even then he wasn’t sure he wasn’t just fooling himself. Where Bartrand had been all soft rolls and cold calculations, this Varric was broad shouldered and trim for his kind, roguish, and irritatingly charming.

Laugh lines around Varric’s eyes crinkled when he continued. “Bartrand would never admit it – he’s too proud. I, however, am quite practical.”

“You’re a part of Bartrand’s venture?” Leo asked, suspicious, weighing. Carver had heard that tone of voice many times from his brother. He’d been the recipient of it often enough. It put most men’s backs up, raised the electricity in the room until one could smell impending violence like ozone before a storm.

Varric only nodded. “That’s right! The Deep Roads wouldn’t normally be my thing, but I can’t allow the head of our family to go down there alone. So – as you might imagine, I have more than a passing interest in this expedition’s success.”

Leo’s stomach gave another growl, like a wolf in a desert. He set his jaw and ignored it, and Carver and Varric, wisely, did the same.

“What makes you so certain we can help?” Leo demanded. “You know nothing about us.”

“On the contrary – you made quite the name for yourself over the past year.” The dwarf’s small eyes were too cunning, too knowing, his manner too confident. His next words proved to Carver that, whatever the little man wanted, he had them by the short hairs. “Serving with the Red Iron is no mean feat; yet you not only served, you impressed!” Varric continued. “The name _Hawke_ is on many lips these days. Not bad for a Fereldan fresh off the boat!”

Leo’s expression was dangerous. There was no way that Varric wouldn’t have seen it, noticed how hard he stared, how still and tense he had grown, his jaw set, his shoulders rigid. The dwarf knew too much about them.

Leo picked his next words slowly, carefully. “You must have heard of my brother as well, then,” he said, to Carver’s surprise.

Varric didn’t glance at Carver. He was still smiling, still pleasant, but his eyes remained locked on Leo. “A little, yes,” he said. “But it’s you they speak most of, messere.”

“That figures,” Carver mumbled. He wondered at their chances of taking this nosy dwarf out in broad daylight were. He wondered why Leo was still talking to him.

“Your brother is certainly welcome to join us, by all means,” Varric said. He spoke slowly, deliberately, a trainer trying to calm a lion, perhaps. Or perhaps in all his spying and his snooping he had heard that Leo did not take jobs that did not include a place for Carver. “I’ll leave that in your hands.”

They had spent the better half of the morning trying to convince Bartrand to take them on the expedition, but Carver didn’t like how easy this was, how convenient. He looked to Leo, certain his brother would tell the dwarf to shove off, and was surprised to find his expression thoughtful.

“Oh, I’m going,” Carver said.

Leo worked his jaw. He crossed his arms, and even with the weight he had recently lost, his muscles strained against the thin fabric of the faded red flannel. “He said he didn’t need another guard.”

Varric looked pleased, like he thought he’d done something clever. “We don’t need another hireling – we need a _partner_!” he said. “The truth is, Bartrand’s been tearing his beard out trying to fund this on his own, but he can’t do it. Invest in the expedition. Fifty sovereigns, and he can’t refuse. Not with me there to vouch for you.”

“Your brother doesn’t seem like the sort who’s willing to split profits,” Leo said, and Carver realized he was indeed starting to take this stranger’s offer seriously. He glanced at him, but Leo’s eyes remained fixed on the dwarf.

Varric chuckled, glancing around the square. In the bright Hightown sunlight they could have been discussing any number of things. He said, “My brother is many things, but he’s not stupid. Far better to share the profits than be trapped in a thaig with a thousand darkspawn between you and the exit. Trust me – he’ll come around.”

Leo uncrossed his arms. He shook his head. “Why would you stick your neck out for a complete stranger?” he asked, and Varric shrugged.

“I’d rather take a chance on someone with your reputation than head into the Deep Roads unprepared,” he answered, and he sounded honest. That was the trouble with him. “And besides, we’d be your partners,” he added. He smiled, spreading his hands, so reasonable, so pleasant. “I’m willing to give a little trust if you are.”

“If I had coin to invest, I wouldn’t need this job in the first place.”

Varric shook his head. “You need to think big! There’s only a brief window after a Blight where the Deep Roads won’t be crawling with darkspawn. The treasure down there could set you and your family up for life!”

Carver hated it, how reasonable he sounded, how realistic he made it look. His heart was in his chest with just the prospect of things finally, _finally_ working out. It took him three times before he could speak. “Come on,” he said, low, private as he could, grabbing Leo’s wrist. “The dwarf makes _some_ sense.” He was louder than he’d meant to be – perhaps it was nerves. He ignored the feel of the dwarf’s cunning little eyes as Leo glanced back, frowning, thoughtful. “You started this,” Carver reminded him. “And it’s a good idea. Certainly better than ending up in the _Gallows_.”

“We work together, you and I, and before you know it, you’ll have all the capital you need,” Varric said, so reasonably that it set Carver’s teeth on edge, made him wonder why he was agreeing with the dwarf. “What do you say?”

Leo shook his head. “There might be nothing down there but darkspawn and rubble. How can you be sure we’ll make a profit?”

“Bartrand isn’t grasping at straws. He’s operating on some good information. Some of the Deep Roads are so old, even the dwarves have forgotten them.  We just need to get down there, then Bartrand will lead the way. You and I will be there to handle the problems.”

“And what makes you so certain you’ll be useful to me?”

Varric chuckled, he shook his head. The interrogation seemed to amuse, but not surprise him. If he’d been keeping the kind of tabs on them that he alluded to, perhaps it was something he had expected. Perhaps it was lucky he wasn’t put off by Leo’s abrupt and suspicious form of caution.

“I know everyone in the city worth knowing,” Varric said. “I can help you find the jobs you need, and if you don’t need me for that…well, there’s always Bianca.” He jerked his head, gesturing to the crossbow on his back, and grinned.

“You named your crossbow?” Leo asked, the closest Carver had seen him to a smile all day.

“And why not? She’s a beauty. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”

Leo’s amusement only lasted a moment longer before it bled away, and he shook his head again. “What’s to stop you from taking my investment and running?”

“You’ll be travelling with the expedition, and I’ll be at your side. If I cross you, you’ll be the first to know – and I’ll be the last.”

“You’re asking me to take a lot on faith.”

Varric nodded, and shook his own head. “You’re asking for a guarantee, and I don’t think I can give you one,” he said. He hesitated, glancing around. A pair of guards were making their patrol, and Varric smiled at them, gave a little wave, and waited for them to pass before he lowered his voice. “Look….I know the templars have been asking questions,” he admitted. Carver watched Leo tense and draw back, and Varric hurried to continue. “How bad would it be to get out of the city for a while? If this works out, you’ll be wealthy enough that the order won’t be able to touch you. You need the coin, and I need your help. We need each other. I can’t make it sound any better than that.”

Leo didn’t answer for a long while. The dwarf’s revelation about the templars had scared him. Carver could see that he’d paled. He could see the thoughts flickering quickly across his eyes as he calculated, weighed their options, came to the conclusion that Carver had already reached.

They didn’t _have_ options.

When he spoke, his voice was low, and hard, and sincere. “If this is a trick,” Leo said, “You’ll pay for it, dwarf.”

Varric shook his head. He smiled. He said, “Wonderful! I’ll take that as a yes!”

Carver felt ill. He wondered if they’d just sealed their doom.


	11. The Hanged Man

“Ah, the Hanged Man,” Varric said, almost sing-song, as he paused to breathe in deeply and smack his lips. He acted as if the aroma of stale beer, sawdust, and vomit was akin to a feastday roast slow cooking over the fire. He was smiling as he glanced back at Hawke. “My favorite shithole. Been here before?”

“My brother comes in here occasionally,” Hawke answered, and pretended not to notice the guilty jerk Carver gave beside him. Carver thought he was unaware of the time spent, both here and in the Rose, spending coin that could have been put to much better use elsewhere. What Carver earned for himself was under his own discretion when it came to spending, and Hawke worked hard not to begrudge his little brother a little down time. He certainly worked hard enough for it.

Varric eyed him for a moment, thoughtful, before he smiled. “But not you? Ah, you’re going to love it. This way – I rent one of the rooms in the back. We can talk there.”

Hawke only nodded, and motioned for him to lead the way.

The Hanged Man was typical of what he expected of a Lowtown establishment. A thin layer of dirty straw and sawdust coated the floor, and the walls, rough-hewn from the same rough ragged rock as the rest of the city, were mostly bare but for a few wanted posters and cheap knock-offs of works of art. The bar was crowded, though it was barely noon. The barmaids knew their business and didn’t seem overly hassled. Several greeted Carver by name as he passed, despite his attempts to hush them.

The rooms Varric took them to were probably the largest in the place, and surprisingly well-appointed, with enough dwarven furnishings to indicate that their new contact had made the place a home for quite a long while. Varric helped himself to a seat and propped his feet up on the table with a comfortable groan.

“Welcome to my home, messeres,” he said. “Drinks are on me. Lunch too, if you’re feeling brave.”

Hawke shook his head and opened his mouth, about to decline the offer, but Carver spoke before he could. “I’ll go put the order in,” he said quickly, not looking at Hawke, backing up and out of the room, rightly suspecting that his brother would yank him back if he lingered for even a moment.

Hawke frowned after him until he heard the dwarf chuckle.

“You two are going to be quite the experience, I can tell already,” Varric said. “I can’t wait to share a dark, darkspawn-riddled tunnel with you.”

“You’re a very odd little man.”

“So I’ve been told. Sit, sit.”

Hawke shook his head and moved to the table. He supposed Varric would learn his lesson about offering to treat quickly enough. At least they could get a good meal out of it. He and the dwarf were silent for a long moment, mutually observing each other. Hawke wondered, again, how he could possibly be so desperate as to trust this fellow – yet something about him was compelling. He realized that he wanted him to be genuine. They could use a break for once.

Varric’s lips quirked, as he came to some conclusion of his own, and he shifted forward in his seat, dropping his feet once more to the ground. “All right,” he said, slapping his hands together and rubbing them vigorously. “Let’s get down to business, then. You’re a man of action – I can tell that already.”

“Why do I feel like I’m not going to like what you’re about to say?”

“Perceptive too! I knew approaching you was the right choice.”

“Get on with it, dwarf.”

“All right,” he chuckled, planting his elbows on the table and steepling his fingers. He watched Hawke for another long moment, the silence stretching as he chose his words.

Hawke waited.

“So…here’s the thing,” Varric continued at last. “We need to find a way into the Deep Roads.”

\--

Carver waited until he could catch Nora’s attention, leaning across the crowded bar and waving her over. She looked mildly annoyed as she wiped her hands on her apron and approached.

“Carver Hawke, what do you want?” she demanded. “The miners have just got paid, and they’re bleeding thirsty – I hope you don’t think I’m going to lose out on tips for a bum who can’t even pay.”

“Not even for a kiss?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes and turned to take someone else’s order, and Carver moved quickly, leaning across the bar to grasp her elbow. “Wait! Wait! I can pay!”

Nora stopped, and gave him a suspicious once-over. “Show me the coin.”

“It’s not mine – Varric Tethras – that mouthy dwarf who rents a room here? He said to put me and my brother on his tab.”

She looked suspicious a moment longer, then glanced toward the back, as if she could see messere Tethras and his guest from here. “You mean I’ll finally get to meet that brother of yours?” she asked.

“You don’t want to meet him. Mean as a bear and covered in boils, he is. Also fat.”

Nora snorted and shook her head. “I don’t know why I let you talk to me, Carver Hawke,” she said.

“What do you mean? I’m adorable.”

“Three clumsy minutes in an alley and you think _adorable’s_ the right word to use,” she shook her head and planted her hands on her hips as he tried, desperately, to hush her. “All right, all right, what do you want, then? Mind you, Corff’s not above taking a hit out on you, if you’re lying about the tab. Messere Tethras is a good customer.”

“Just how good?” Carver asked, eyeing her. She waved away the question.

“Give me your order or get out. I’m not wasting bar space on you.”

Carver pursed his lips, but there were more pressing matters at hand than the barmaid’s opinion of him. And it had been _four_ awkward minutes in the alley, and she had seemed awfully pleased with him at the time.

“You still serve that stew?” he asked. “With the potatoes and the little chunks of meat?”

Her lip curled a little, but she shrugged. “Sure, if you’re feeling brave. A bowl of that?”

“Two,” he corrected, “Biggest bowls you have. And some of that bread – you know, the black stuff, with the crunchy, crusty - ”

“You mean the burnt ones?”

He almost groaned. “Maker, yes,” he said. “Some of that. And a pitcher of ale. Is it cold?”

“No.”

“I don’t care, a pitcher of ale.”

“Two large bowls of rat stew, burnt bread, and lukewarm, piss-poor ale,” she lifted her brows. “Anything else?”

“I ever tell you how much I love you, Nora?”

She rolled her eyes, and retreated to the back, and Carver chuckled to himself. Things seemed to be taking a turn for the better. He felt optimistic. Energized.

Those six minutes in the alley had been the best in Nora’s life, and she knew it.  

“Carver Hawke. I’d know that stupid haircut anywhere.”

He reached up before he could stop himself, all-too aware of a certain cowlick that gave him trouble from time to time, and it took a moment before Carver even thought to turn and look for the speaker.

“Jame,” he said, still smoothing his hair desperately. “Sav.”

The brothers made a place for themselves on either side of him, shoving and elbowing their way in. Twins, like he and Bethany had been, small and red headed. They were members of the Red Iron, quick and deadly with knives. They had a knack for finding extra trouble, whether it was antagonizing other gangs or scoping out a Hightown idiot who forgot to lock his windows.

“Surprised you’re willing to show your face around here,” Jame said, flashing a smile, trading a troublesome look with his brother. “After that beating you took last night.”

“How much was it you lost?” Sev asked. “Four thousand?”

“Five,” Carver said. “But it’s important to note first I _won_ it.”

“Just couldn’t leave well enough alone,” Sev said. “That’s your problem. Three,” he told Nora, indicating the three of them.

Carver shook his head, accepting the drink when Nora poured it. Sev and Jame failed no notice the way she frowned at them. “If that was my only problem, I would be sitting pretty,” he said.

“Five. Maker.” Jame lifted his drink.

“It’s be ten if I’d won,” Carver said.

“But now it’s zero.”

“Five though,” Sev said. “In one night. You’d be running this town if you knew how to stop.”

Someone in the back called Nora, and Carver watched her duck out of sight. “Yeah, yeah,” he said.  “You’re paying for this, right?”

“Why not. You pay us back in amusement alone. Fun to watch you fall.”

“Har har. Asshole.”

“You playing tonight?” Sev asked.

“You gonna front me the coin?”

“Why not?” he chuckled. “Seems like a worthy investment.”

Carver considered it. He drank. “I’ll see what my brother has planned,” he said. He watched Sev and Jame exchange glances. Jame’s grin grew. Sev rolled his eyes.

“That brother of yours,” Sev muttered.

Carver frowned. “If you have something to say, say it.”

“Some of us boys – we just think he ruined your chances, is all,” Jame said, after another glance with his twin.

When Carver took another drink, it tasted bitter.

“Looks like my order’s ready,” Carver said, as Nora returned from the back with a tray. He pushed away from the bar. “I’ll see you fellows later.”

“We’re meeting after sundown at the Rose,” Jame said. “Make us some money, and we’ll get you a girl, yeah?”

He waved them off, and retreated to the sound of their laughter.

\--

Varric’s rented room was as quiet as a room at the Hanged Man could possibly get, making the noises from downstairs all the more noticeable – the laughter of drunks, orders shouted at the bar, one talkative man wandering the halls musing on the nature of reality. Hawke stared at his new business partner, and tried to understand what he’d just been told.

He examined his hands, turning them over. Most of his callouses were old. The dirt lodged under his nails seemed a permanent addition. Scars from fights and spell work gone bad stood out. He rubbed a healing burn on his thumb.

“Do we have any other options?” he asked.

“None at the moment,” Varric said. He had been patient, as Hawke considered his plan, and when he spoke he sounded honest. “Bartrand had an entrance lined up, but it was a bust. I can keep looking, but if we don’t find anything, we’ll have a fancy expedition with nowhere to go.”

Hawke shook his head. “I don’t want trouble with the Wardens.”

“Supposedly, this Grey Warden came in with some other Fereldan refugees not long ago,” Varric said. His eyes briefly flickered upwards as Carver rentered the room, carefully juggling a tray laden with mugs, a pitcher of ale, and two large bowls of stew. His attention returned to Hawke without further acknowledging the warrior’s return. “A Lowtown woman named Lirene has been helping the Fereldans. We talk to her, maybe we learn where he is. In the meantime, I’ll keep after my contacts – see if I can drum up any other work.”

Hawke stared at the bowl his brother placed before him, but he didn’t really see it. His lips were pressed into a thin line, his mind busy at work, and he almost missed Carver’s question.

“What’s this about Wardens?”

“Varric wants us to track one down,” Hawke said. “Convince him to give us his maps into the Deep Roads.”

“What – for real? A real warden? Like the one that slew the archedemon?”

“Not _that_ warden,” Hawke said.

“Well, yeah, didn’t think so, since the one died and the other is busy doing – whatever it is heroes do. A real warden? Shit,” Carver seemed immediately cheered. He laughed; the concept excited him. It was good to see him smile.

Hawke shifted forward in his seat, reaching for his spoon. For the first time in days, he realized he was hungry.

“You see?” Varric asked Carver. “I’m not as bad as you think.”

“We’ll see about that, dwarf.”

The first taste of soup was greasy, and salty, and gritty. It exploded on Hawke’s tongue, tough stringy meat and hard vegetables.

It was the best thing he’d ever tasted.

“So when are we tracking down the warden?” Carver asked. “I have plans tonight, but tomorrow – ”

“We should go as soon as possible,” Hawke said. He reached for the bread, tearing it in half in his hands. The broth soaked into it, and dripped into his beard as he lifted it to his mouth. “No point in waiting.”

“There’s still daylight, Junior,” Varric said.

“Yeah, I know that, I just – I don’t want to miss out on my plans. If this looks like it will go late, we need to do it tomorrow.”

“Sure,” Hawke said. His spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl.

 

 


	12. Darktown

It was late afternoon when they left the Hanged Man, the shadows beginning to stretch long. In Lowtown, it got dark earlier, the sun blocked out as it dropped beneath the building line. Carver watched it sinking lower as they made their way from the Hanged Man to the nondescript building Varric indicated to be the base of Lirene, the woman who had been helping Fereldan refugees.

Carver and Leo had been in Kirkwall a year. They had been up and down the city countless times. Lowtown, Hightown, the Docks.

But Carver had never even known the little shop existed.

They stepped inside – and it smelled like home. Spindleweed and elfroot and embrium hung, fragrant, from the rafters, drying in the hot press of bodies. The people inside wore good Fereldan wool and sturdy Fereldan boots. Babies cried in blankets embroidered with dogs. Carver hadn’t realized how much he missed his home until the sight of his countrymen sent something painful wrenching through his gut.

“Maker,” he whispered.

Leo paused just inside the door, the fading light splashing bright against the dark interior.

“Please,” a girl was begging the woman Carver assumed to be Lirene. “Mama just had a baby - !”

Carver saw his brother’s chest expand as he breathed in deeply, watched his eyelids briefly flutter. Leo shook himself and strode to the counter, shoulders back, chin out, full of purpose. The few who thought to protest as he broke the line quieted quickly at the sight of him, and even Lirene swallowed whatever she had originally intended to say.

To her credit, she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, splaying her hands on the counter, an immovable force ready to face down a bear. She was younger than Carver had expected, and pretty. Her strength was obvious and admirable.

That was how they made Fereldan girls.

She said, “If you’re seeking aid, leave your name with my girl. We serve everyone here – no one came from Ferelden without trouble, but I can’t give priority to anyone who’s already found work and lodging.” The way she looked at them told Carver where she thought they stood. They were clean, their clothes, though worn and faded, were neatly mended, and though they had missed some meals over the past month, the effect was not yet noticeable.

Carver jerked when Leo spoke.

“Is there anything I can do to assist these people?” Leo asked, quietly, leaning forward a bit, as if he didn’t want to be overheard.

It startled Lirene too. She straightened, eyeing him anew, brushing flyaway strands from her face before she crossed her arms. “If you’ve coin to spare, we won’t turn it down,” she said. “Donations go in the box up front.”

He glanced back, then nodded, returning his attention to her. He avoided looking at Carver along the way.

“Anything else?” she asked.

“I hear you know where I can find a Fereldan Grey Warden.”

Whatever warmth had returned to the woman’s face fled now. She looked tired, and wary. She sounded guarded when she answered.

“The only Fereldan Grey Warden I’ve heard of slew the Archedemon to save us all,” she said. “Fat lot they care here.”

Leo was still, plainly, waiting for an answer. Someone in the back protested the line not moving. Lirene hesitated.

“We’re out of the Blight’s path now. Why would you need a Warden?”

“The healer was one of them once, wasn’t he?” the next woman in line asked. “A warden?”

The look Lirene gave her was decidedly unfriendly. “Well, he’s _not_ now,” she snapped. “And he’s busy enough without answering fool questions about it.”

Lirene tried not to meet Leo’s eyes, pretending to busy herself with things on the counter.

Leo said, “Where is this healer?” and she scowled.

“You see what our people face in Kirkwall,” she said, gesturing for emphasis. “They have no homes. No jobs. Most can barely buy bread. This healer – he serves them without thought for coin. He’s closed their wounds, delivered their children. He’s a good man, and I _won’t_ lose him to the blighted templars!”

She was almost pleading.

Leo took a breath.

“You mean he’s a mage?”

Lirene paled. She licked her lips and lifted her chin, eyes darting about the shop as if searching for a way out. Finding none, she made a decision. She leaned across the counter, and Carver saw her reach for something beneath it. “Do you think I would stick my neck out for a purveyor of hensbane and leeches?” she demanded, soft, threatening.

“Perish the thought,” Carver muttered. “ _Another_ delicate mage flower.”

Leo glanced back at him, frowning, disapproving. Carver was the first to look away.

“Look,” Lirene said, her words pulling Leo’s attention back to her. “He doesn’t want to be locked in the Gallows just for using the gifts the Maker gave him.”

“Your healer is in no danger from me,” Leo said.

“R-right,” Carver agreed. “Perfectly safe. If he cooperates.”

Lirene took a deep breath, looking from Leo to Carver. Varric had come in with them, but he had stayed back by the door, and was not involving himself.

“I suppose it’s not my secret to keep,” Lirene said at last, reluctantly. “Anders has certainly been free enough with his services.” Still she hesitated. She took a deep breath. It seemed to take effort to straighten, to slide her hand from whatever weapon she had hidden under the counter. When she did, she didn’t know what to do with her arms. She crossed them, then let them fall again to her sides. Finally she placed her hands flat on the counter. “Refugees in Darktown know – to find the healer, look for the lit lantern. If you have need enough, Anders will be within.”

Leo took a breath. He nodded. “Thank you,” he said. It was all Carver could do not to roll his eyes. He didn’t know how anyone bought it when Leo decided to play nice.

Near the door, Leo stopped. Carver watched him take out his money pouch. He caught the clink of precious coin – coin they needed to live on, to bribe their enemies and put food on the table. They sounded too loud as he upended them into the donation box.

“What are you doing?” Carver hissed, following him outside. He caught the appraising look Varric gave his brother as they passed the dwarf on their way out. The sun was lower as they stepped outside, the heat more bearable.

Leo shrugged off his hand. “Don’t worry about it,” he said gruffly.

“We _need_ that money,” Carver hissed. He grabbed at his brother again. Leo shook it off, hard enough that he stumbled a step.

“I said not to worry about it.”

“Listen, asshole - !”

“Hey! We heard you in there – asking about the healer!”

Carver jerked, stopping as he realized that they were slowly being surrounded by a group of men. They carried the kinds of weapons that came easily to hand. Clubs, lengths of chain, boards with nails in the ends – even a few knives and hunting bows. Carver could smell the violent intent that lingered, heavy, around them.

“We know what happens to mages in this town – and it ain’t gonna happen to him.”

Leo took a breath, but Carver moved, shoving past him. “You want him safe?” he demanded. “Don’t pick fights with other Fereldans while the templars are after us all!”

“ _Carver!_ ” Leo hissed, grabbing for him. It was Carver’s turn to shake him off.

“Fereldan?” the lead man asked. He eyed them anew, and took a step back. “I…I figured you for a Kirkwaller. Sorry. Maker bless the rule of our Queen Anora.” He bowed, and they dispersed, quietly. Leo was silent and still for a long moment before he began to walk again.

“So…” Varric drawled. “Where to?”

“I’m going to see what Aveline is doing,” Leo said. “Then we’re headed to Darktown.”

\--

In their year in Kirkwall, Darktown was one of the few places Carver and his brother had not ventured.

It was dark, and it stank, as a sewer should. Those that lived within it were vacant-eyed, helpless, starving. Their clothes were scraps, and they were filthy from scrounging through the muck for anything they could find of worth. The walls were slick, and growing lichen.

“Any sort of fog, and we leave immediately,” Aveline said. She had agreed to come down with them, but Carver could see the tension she held, tight like a bowstring. It was an open secret that the guards did not patrol the sewers, that those who tried did not come back. An unspoken rule of Kirkwall – the underground belonged to the lowliest of its citizens, and trespassers were dealt with with extreme prejudices.

She hadn’t asked questions. Leo walked into her barracks, and said, “We’re going to Darktown,” and Aveline had stared at him for a long moment, then shifted her gaze, first to Carver, then to Varric.

She had inhaled deeply, then sighed, and risen, reaching for her armor. “Don’t make me regret this, Hawke,” she warned.

Carver wasn’t convinced she wouldn’t.

She and Varric had chatted, quietly, along the way, feeling one another out, determining where each one fit. Aveline had only served in the Red Iron with Carver and Leo for six months before she found a place with the guards. Carver didn’t understand why she continued to associate with his brother, why she would risk her position for – what? They weren’t friends; Leopold Hawke didn’t have friends. Loyalty, then? Fellow feeling for another Fereldan?

Leo was the kind of man who stood out wherever he went – an unfortunate trait for an apostate, no doubt, that had never been more apparent than here in Darktown. He was tall, muscular, healthy. He walked with a straight back and a sure stride.

His expression was unreadable as he surveyed the citizens of Darktown, the set of his jaw growing stronger, tighter, his eyes growing harder. He flinched like a nervous horse when Aveline gave his shoulder a pat.

“This way,” Leo said, in a voice like the ice at the top of the mountain, cold and heavy and waiting for an avalanche. He made his way slowly, stepping over puddles of sewage. It was like a maze, the dark corridors, the small halos of firelight from campfires.

He stopped when he found it, a pair of closed, rough-hewn doors. The lantern burned, bright and ready.

Leo moved forward, pushing open the door without waiting for invitation.

The room within had once been a natural cave under the city, the walls carved out rough, the floor covered in clean rushes. There were cabinets and shelves and rows of neat, clean cots, jars of bandages and medicines, herbs hanging from the ceiling. Beds with patients were kept isolated by cheap paper screens. Carver heard a hacking cough behind one, the sound of retching behind another.

An assistant grinding something in a pestle tried to stop them, but Hawke brushed them off, striding with confidence through the room. Carver saw a corner sectioned off alone that must have been where the healer slept – a small lopsided bed, shelves sparsely decorated with battered books and cat figurines. A desk covered in papers, and a hard-looking chair.

The healer was bent over a cot, deep in concentration, his hands glowing. Carver felt an uncomfortable itch between his shoulder blades, a sense of unease. He had grown up around mages, but never once seen magic used so openly, so blatantly. Malcolm Hawke had always kept his lessons with his two favorite children secret, secluded – Carver had not been welcome to come and watch – and he rarely used magic around the house. And Leo - even when Leo used magic in a brawl, there was a subtle art to it. He kept his spells small enough that someone could convince himself he hadn’t seen anything, if he tried hard enough.

There was a boy on the cot, and his family nearby – anxious, watchful, but completely trusting in the healer’s abilities. Their need outweighed their natural fear of magic, Carver supposed.

Leo stopped. His eyes moved over the scene – the healer, the boy, the family. He took a deep breath, and Carver wondered what the magic smelled like to him. Was it all ozone and spring water to another mage, or was it something sharper, deeper, clearer?

The spell winked out, and the boy on the cot sat up, a gasp wrenching, hard, from his chest. His family gathered around. His mother gave a sob, and threw her arms around him. His sister touched him, tentatively. The healer slumped, exhausted, forgotten, his hands white and pale against the cot, his hair, greasy and unkempt, sliding down over his face. His pale hands trembled as he lifted them, long fingers combing the hair from his face, binding it back with a tie.

The boy’s father finally remembered him, and approached to thank him. The healer turned away, waving him off, rubbing his temples as if to ward off an oncoming headache. He didn’t notice the small purse the father left for him as he gathered up his family and left. Leo shifted to let them pass, then took a step forward, opening his mouth.

He hadn’t made a sound, so far as Carver heard, and yet the healer suddenly stiffened. His hand lashed out, long fingers wrapping around a staff leaning against the wall. He spun around, hand lifted in a warding motion. His voice, when he spoke, was strange, dual-toned.

“I have made this place a sanctum of healing and salvation! Why do you threaten it?”

 

 

 


	13. Anders

Anders felt his heart in his throat like a thick bite of apple that refused to be swallowed. His magic flickered, that part of him that was Justice battering at his flesh like a nervous fruit fly, and all he could think, for the first few, urgent heartbeats, was _caught, caught, they’ve found us, it’s over._

He’d known it would happen, one way or another.

If only he wasn’t so _tired_ he could think, he could – could –

Reality snapped back into place. Two men, a dwarf, only one guard. Not templars. It took a moment, twin images, reality and fear, shifting and swinging and finally merging into one. His vision blurred, then sharpened, wrenching painfully into focus.

“I want to know about the Deep Roads.”

The man who came forward was tall and broad, powerfully built, muscular – not an ounce of fat on him. He wore faded red flannel, and sturdy work boots, and a thick, short beard. His eyes were amber, molten, his gaze direct, and he met Anders’s eyes without fear of his magic.

Anders took a deep breath. Another. He was on edge, and it was battering around in his skull, searching for release. It took a third breath before he began to feel human again. He straightened drawing himself up to his full height, feeling his spine roll and his back pop. His shoulders were tight and sore with tension.

“Did the Wardens send you to bring me back?” Anders asked, and before they could answer, added, emphatically, “I’m _not_ going. Those bastards made me get rid of my cat.” Poor Ser-Pounce-a-lot had hated the Deep Roads. He wasn’t sure if he’d spoken aloud or not. The dwarf and the guard exchanged glances.

“You came to Kirkwall just to escape the Wardens?” the lead man asked, watching him, his expression unreadable.

Anders found himself answering. “You say that like it’s a small thing,” he said. “Yes – I’m here because there’s no Warden outpost, no darkspawn, and a whole host of refugees to blend in with. And…some reasons of my own.” He kept his voice low, but glanced past this odd group, hoping none of his patients could hear him. The volunteers who came to assist him would be taking care of more minor hurts the old-fashioned way, with poultices and salves, rather than magic.

He realized the fellow was frowning at him. Displeased with his answer, perhaps suspicious. Anders motioned him to the sectioned off area of the clinic that served as both his home and his office, where at least they could speak with the illusion of privacy. In his head, he took inventory of the day’s remaining patients. All that were left were stable, unless someone else came in. Perhaps, once this was dealt with, he could afford an hour or two of sleep.

“I’ve always heard that joining the Wardens is for life,” the fellow said as he followed, and Anders noted how his gaze moved around the clinic, taking in and cataloging every detail. He paused a moment to look over a shelf containing jars of herbs, giving Anders a peek at a strong profile.

“That’s only partly true,” Anders corrected, pulling his gaze away. He checked his teapot, found it passably clean, and moved to the barrel of clean water that kept him supplied down here in the sewers. It was running low. He was careful not to spill a drop as he filled it. He could feel the heat of the stranger’s molten gaze like a flame at his back.

“I’m part of an expedition into the Deep Roads,” the man said, as Anders carefully roused his fire and set the teapot to simmer. When he lifted his head, he found the stranger still watching him. “Any information you have could save people’s lives.”

“I will die a happy man if I never have to think about the Deep Roads again,” Anders said. He wiped his hands on his robes as he moved away from the fire. He pulled out the chair at his desk and sat, and put aside how tired and shaky he felt. It was good to get off his feet. “You can’t imagine what I’ve been through to get here,” he added. “I’m not interested.”

The stranger was frowning at him, displeased with his answer. He looked like the sort of man people didn’t often say no to – too big, too broad, too rough. His knuckled cracked as he made his hands into fists, and Anders could see the thoughts moving behind his eyes. The threat would come next, but Anders was more concerned with calculating how strong to make his tea. If he only slept for one hour instead of two, and if no one else came in today, he could –

Something shifted inside him, the thought bubbling up from somewhere deep and private and painful, a face he hadn’t seen in too many years. Anders looked quickly back to the stranger.

“Although – a favor for a favor,” he said, just as the fellow was opening his mouth. “Does that sound like a fair deal? You help me, I’ll help you?”

The fellow’s mouth was a thin line, his jaw taut. He began to turn away. “We’ll get to the Deep Roads ourselves,” he said. His voice was like iron. Anders stood so quickly he toppled over his chair.

“Wait!” he cried, and for a wonder, the man stopped. It took a dizzy moment for Anders to convince himself he wasn’t imagining things. The intensity of the amber gaze that fixed itself on him sent a surge of adrenaline through him, steadying him. “I have a Warden map of the area,” he said, “But there’s a price.”

The other man crossed his arms and waited, unimpressed. The teapot began to whistle, and Anders tuned away to fetch it. The reminder of his purpose renewed his energy, and with each word, he felt a little stronger. He was more than the flesh that stretched so thin over his bones. He had too much to do to rest.

“I came to Kirkwall to aid a friend,” he said. “A mage. A prisoner in the wretched Gallows.”

The stranger didn’t answer. He was silent as Anders poured the tea into a stained cup, as he prepared it with a single, precious scoop of honey and the strongest tea he had. Those eyes were still on him when he turned back around, but he felt stronger now, bolder. It was easier to meet those eyes.

“The templars learned of my plans to free my friend,” he said. “Help me bring him safely past them, and you shall have your maps.”

The stranger glanced over his shoulder at his companions, who had given him some space, and his frown deepened as he considered the offer. He rolled his shoulders, and Anders felt the rare, fluttering elation of hope when he looked at him again and asked, “What do the templars know of your plans?”

\--

Twilight was painting the mansions of Hightown in pinks and purples, making them shine like opals in the fast fading light. Carver walked at the back of the group, uneasy.

“How about a big sign that just says _don’t_?” Varric’s voice was a low, amused murmur, Bianca on his shoulder, his eyes scanning the streets for any early signs of the street gangs that plagued the city after dark. “You could hit people with it.”

Aveline was not amused by the suggestion. “Thank you, I get it,” she said tightly.

Carver kicked a stone and fingered the hilt of his sword. He couldn’t reconcile the feeling of utter wrongness that had settled, deep in his belly.

Leo glanced over his shoulder at him. “Carver, stop sulking,” he said. His expression was hard and stern, his shoulders tense. “I’ll get you to your friends in plenty of time.”

“I’m not worried about that!” Carver said, a little too loudly. His voice echoed down the empty streets, bounced off the opaline walls. He felt conspicuous, and wrong. Breaking a mage out of the Circle – this was a new wrong, a new level of sin. It made all the crimes they had justified over the past year pale in comparison and he couldn’t – they _needed_ those maps. They _needed_ this break.

But the cost was getting higher.

“I told you – if you can’t handle this, you can stay behind,” Leo said. “I don’t need you.”

Carver clenched his teeth. He reminded himself why he was doing this.

“You’re taking me along, dick,” he said. Not for the first time that day. Still, Leo watched him for a long time before turning away.

The shadows grew darker as they neared the chantry, and Carver felt a guilty itch between his shoulder blades. The apostate Anders was waiting outside for them, all long lines and sharp angles and feverish eyes.

If he had been a soldier, Carver would have gone to his commanding officer, asked him to be taken off the line. It was clear he needed sleep, and a good meal. He was jumpy, and that put them all in danger. He lifted his staff as if he would attack before he realized it was them and approached. His gaze was too intense, his hands too busy.

“I saw Karl go in a few minutes ago,” Anders said. “No templars so far.”

The Hawke boys had not been raised particularly religious. Their parents taught them the Chant and took them to services on holy days, but that was the extent of it. Carver believed in the Maker, but didn’t spend a lot of time thinking more about him than that. The Maker probably existed, but it was better to rely on his sword for protection than some absent entity.

But as they entered the Chantry, he felt a superstitious chill pass over his spine.

The Chantry was dark, and empty, the air scented with the ghosts of the incense that burned throughout the day. Their footsteps echoed. It was eerie in the way of places that should not be disturbed by trespassers. Carver hung back toward the back of the group, skin crawling. He wondered if he should recite the Chant, except on the off-chance the Maker _wasn’t_ watching tonight, he certainly didn’t want to alert him.

Leo led the way up the stairs, the low burning lamps casting harsh shadows against his face. His grip on his staff was white-knuckled.

They rounded a corner, and there he was, his back to them, a mage in dull, faded robes. The dim lamps flickered across hair that had gone prematurely grey. He spoke without turning around.

“Anders, I know you too well,” Karl said, and Carver’s feeling of unease intensified. His voice was flat, toneless, empty. There was something _wrong_ with his voice. It was bleak. It was nothing. “I knew you would never give up.”

The mage Anders stopped short, his sharp skinny shoulders drawing tight, his spine drawing him up like a puppet on a string. “What’s wrong?” he asked, as if he already knew. In contrast to Karl, his voice was that of the child who knew there were monsters waiting for him under the bed. “Why – why are you talking like - ?”

He turned.

The brand was bright, angry red, and it was new, the skin still scabbing around the abused flesh. Karl’s smile lacked life. His eyes were flat and dull. He said, “I was too rebellious. Like you. The templars knew I had to be made an example of.”

Anders tripped over his feet, stumbling back. He hit Leo in the chest and hardly noticed the big hands that lifted to catch his shoulders. He raked a hand through back through his hair. “N-no!”

“How else will mages ever master themselves?” Karl asked in that blank, empty voice. His smile was utterly tranquil. “You’ll understand, Anders. As soon as the templars teach you to control yourself.”

Carver heard it, the sound of armored feet on stairs, clatter of swords, and shields, creak of leather. Carver turned, hand straying to his sword as the templars moved in around them.

Too many - !

They were outnumbered, and his hand was sweaty. The sound was too loud as Carver drew his sword.

His mouth was dry, his heart in his throat. He looked desperately to his brother, and for a moment he thought he could see it, that selfsame brand, burned dark on his brother’s forehead. He was too powerful to be allowed to simply live in the Tower. They would drag him away in chains. They would change him.

He would never be Leo again.

“This is the apostate,” Karl said.

Aveline and Varric edged closer to Leo. Bianca was knocked with a bolt. It wouldn’t be enough.

Carver would die before he let them touch his brother.

“No…” Anders said. There were tears in his eyes. He wrenched away from Leo. “ _No_!”

The sudden light that filled the room was blinding, blue, impossibly bright. The templars fell back, shielding their eyes, and there was Anders, the apostate, shining, bright, staff in hand, skin cracking around the white-hot power that filled him.

“ _You will never take another mage as you took him!”_

Leo was the first to rouse himself, to move, drawing his staff from his back. It spun in his hands, striking down toward the ground, and Carver’s hair lifted at the back of his neck moments before the bolt came down, lightning, quick and deadly, killing the first three templars before they even knew to be wary.

But these weren’t back alley thugs they were facing. The templars rallied quickly.

“Two mages!” came the cry, and Carver threw himself at the closest templar. Steel met steel, ringing loudly in the holy place, and then Carver found his opening, and the templar’s head went flying.

He couldn’t allow himself to think, or it wouldn’t be easy. Training won out over conscience. With a scream of fury and frustration, Carver moved on to his next opponent.

\--

There was no exhaustion, no hunger, no fear. Not when the Fade burned through him, searing his humanity away, leaving him a beacon of justice, of righteous fury and untempered rage.

It was quiet here, in this place, where the power came so easily to hand and seared the underside of his skin. Templars who drew too close to him had the flesh melted from their bones. He could do anything like this, in this endless sea of power. He could bend the world as he wished it, force the change that needed to happen. He could –

 _His name_.

“Anders? I – what did you do?”

The last templar had fallen, and his power winked out, like a candle snuffed by winter winds. Anders sagged, and had to use his staff to support himself as he turned, dreading what he would see.

Karl – _Karl –_ there it was, in his eyes, a soul. Those eyes that stared at Anders _burned_ with life.

_The older mage’s eyes burned with mischief as he pulled Anders into the closet. He’d taken another beating recently, and when they kissed, Anders tasted blood._

_He didn’t care._

_“We have ten minutes,” Karl said, with his wicked smile and the naughty hands already gathering up the ends of Anders’s robe. “Try to keep quiet this time.”_

“It’s like – like you brought a piece of the Fade into the world,” Karl said. He looked older than Anders remembered him, tired, worn. He reached for him, but stopped short of touching him. He looked at Anders as if not quite sure what he was, but he smiled, shook his head in wonder. “I had already forgotten what that felt like.”

_Karl came to him, after his harrowing, sneaking into his bed, holding him as he trembled and cried. They would be separated soon, but they didn’t know it yet. Karl kissed his temple and squeezed his hand. He told him shitty jokes and tickled him with his beard._

_“I love you,” he told Anders, as the sun turned the windows pink. “You know that, right?”_

“I thought the Tranquil were cut off from the Fade forever,” Hawke said as he approached. He was splattered in blood. He had been right there with them, fighting, another mage. Powerful. Practiced. Anders felt his hands begin to shake.

Karl said, “When you’re Trannquil, you never think on your life before. But – it’s like the Fade itself is inside Anders. Burning like the sun.”

_He was the only thing that made life bearable._

_Karl was the light, the sun, the air itself. They sat in the library, holding hands under the table. He was always battered, bruised, always taking the punishments meant for others, always protecting everyone he could._

_“Better me,” he said, when Anders protested. “I can handle it.”_

_He always smiled when he said it._

Anders watched terror fill Karl’s eyes.

“Please,” Karl begged. “Kill me before I forget again! I don’t know how you brought it back, but it’s fading!”

“Karl…” Anders whispered.

Hawke’s voice was low, and it was quiet, and it was surprisingly gentle. He said, “Maybe we can find a cure…” and Anders felt cold.

“Can you cure a beheading?” he asked, staring at his old friend, at the horror that had filled Karl’s eyes. Karl Thekla had never been afraid of anything in his life. “The dreams of Tranquil mages are severed…there’s nothing left to fix.”

Karl’s hand was thin and it was pale as he reached for Anders. It felt cold, and fragile, and not at all like the strong, youthful hands that had once taken Anders apart so completely. Those blissful, stolen moments in the Tower seemed centuries away.

“I would rather die a mage than live as a templar puppet,” Karl said, and Hawke nodded.

“Help him,” Hawke said, stepping back.

Karl’s hand tightened on Anders’s. His breath came more quickly as he watched him draw his little belt knife.

“I got here too late,” Anders said. His eyes were burning. His voice broke. “I’m sorry, Karl. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fading!” Karl said. Begged. He clasped his hand, hard, staring, pleading.

Anders saw it, the moment when everything that had been his friend faded from Karl’s eyes. His hand went slack, and slipped from Anders own. He smiled, serene.

“Why do you look at me like that?” Karl asked.

Anders stepped closer. He wrapped an arm around him, cupping the back of his neck tenderly.

_“I love you,” Karl told him, smiling, lit up pink by the rising sun. “You know that, right?”_

Karl gasped as Anders sank his knife deep in his belly. He went so gently, so quietly, nothing like Karl at all. He slumped against Anders, boneless, unresisting, and holding him, Anders sank slowly to the ground.

 


	14. The Rose

Aveline caught his arm as he moved to follow the other mage into the clinic.

“Hawke, be gentle,” she said, and it was more of an order than a plea.

Hawke stared at her for a long moment. It took concentration to register the hand on his arm, the worry on her face. Their group were battered and blood splattered, and in the morning the guards would find the templars’ bodies in the Chantry, their blood soaking into the carpets, and Aveline would have the task of pretending not to know anything about it. Likely she would also have to see their families, if they had any.

Varric cleared his throat. “Drinks later?” he asked.

Hawke drew his arm away, slowly. He didn’t trust himself to speak, so he only nodded. Aveline was still frowning at him, as if she didn’t quite trust what he would or would not do.

“He’s been through enough tonight,” she told him. Hawke only nodded again.

Carver had set himself apart from them. He stood near the stairs, pulling his collar up to protect his neck from sewer drips, and would not look at him. Hawke knew the mulish set to his brother’s shoulders, the glower on his face.

Hawke let himself into the clinic.

It was quiet inside, the lamps burning low, the beds made up and left empty and the medicines in neat little rows in their jars. Anders stood in the center of the room, his head back and his eyes dry, looking about the space as if he had never seen it before. Hawke saw the tremor in his pale thin hands as he reached up to remove his mantle. He laid it tenderly across one of the beds and he sat. Hawke watched him stroke the blood splattered feathers.

He looked lost. He lifted his eyes as Hawke approached, and he stared, blank, hollow.

“Talk,” Hawke said. “What happened to you in the Chantry?”

Despite Aveline’s admonitions, Hawke’s voice came out harder than he’d meant for it to. He felt himself inwardly cringe, prepared his pride to apologize, but the other mage didn’t flinch.

“I…” Anders said, and stopped, blinked, licked his lips. “This is hard to explain,” he said. “When I was in Amaranthine, I met a spirit of Justice who was trapped outside the Fade. We became friends. And he recognized the injustice that mages in Thedas face every day.”

“And that’s…different than a demon?” Hawke asked.

Anders nodded slowly, the lost look in his eyes slowly hardening. “Just as demons prey on the deadly sins of mankind, there are good spirits who embody our virtues,” he said. Defensive. They both knew what it was he had done. “Spirits of compassion,” he said. “Fortitude…justice. They are the Maker’s first children, and they have all but given up on us.”

Hawke didn’t want a lesson on religion. He thought of those templars, with their sightless eyes and their lifeblood bleeding into the Chantry’s fine carpets. He snapped at Anders again. “Just say whatever you have to say,” Hawke said, and he dreaded the answer. He reminded himself that they hadn’t had a choice. He told himself to keep in mind that this man had just killed a friend. Anders was hurting. Anders was grieving.

Unfortunately whatever compassion Hawke felt couldn’t blind him to the magnitude of their situation.

“To live outside the Fade, he needed a host.” Anders met his gaze without flinching. He spoke slowly, bluntly, his eyes never straying from Hawke’s face. “I offered to help him – we were going to work together, bring justice to very child ever ripped away from his mother to be sent to the Circle.”

Excuses. That was what it sounded like. Hawke clenched his fists. He felt sick. An abomination put everyone in his path in danger. A mage who succumbed to the promises of spirits only proved the Chantry right, only made things harder for other mages. A mage who became an abomination was weak, and he was dangerous, and he could not be trusted. They would know that mages had killed those templars, and it would only enliven the continual search for apostates. It would only serve as justification to tighten the rules around those who already dwelt within the Circle, who might find themselves emboldened should they hear the news. Whether an apostate or in the Circle, Mages who knew how to live quietly, who knew how to be responsible with their magic would suffer because what they had done tonight.

And Aveline would have to talk to the templars’ families.

Hawke realized Malcolm Hawke would never have let Anders leave the Chantry alive.

Anders was the first to look away. He hung his head, and he flexed his bloody hands as he stared at them. “I guess I had too much anger,” he said. “Once Justice was inside me, he…changed.”

“You have the spirit of Justice living in your head,” Hawke repeated, slowly, watching him. He felt – it was difficult to reconcile what he felt, compassion for the man warring with the utter wrongness of what he was, what they had done. The Circle was a harsh place, his father had told him, but it was important. Mages needed to learn how to control themselves, how to resist temptation. If they couldn’t learn that, they needed to be under the watch of the templars, lest they hurt those without power.

_Malcolm Hawke would never have let Anders leave the Chantry alive._

“It’s not like that,” Anders said. “He’s gone now. He’s part of me. It’s not like we can…have a conversation. I feel his thoughts as my own. Not even the greatest scholar could tell you where I end and he begins.”

Hawke flexed his hands. He took a breath, then another. He looked at Anders, so sad and soft and broken right now. His eyes held a world of pain.

He couldn’t kill him.

Hawke took a step back. “I just need your Grey Warden expertise, not a diatribe on your strange personal habits.” he snapped. His words came out harsher than he meant for them to be. His choice frightened him, made him sick. It went against everything he had ever been taught to let an abomination live.

Anders looked up. They stared at each other for a long moment before the other mage rose, and moved to a cabinet, pulling out the maps. He thrust them, hard, against Hawke’s chest.

“ _Here_ ,” he spat, as Hawke’s hands lifted, slowly, to take them. “These are all the documents I have for this area.”

Hawke nodded, once, tightly.

Anders’s voice stopped him as he turned to go.

“I can understand if you would rather me not join you personally,” the other mage said. “I cannot control my need for vengeance. I would ask no one to take on the danger of travelling with me. But – I will be here in my clinic. If you need me.”

Hawke was still for a long moment, his eyes falling to the maps in his arms, then lifting again to the other mage, this thin, hungry, exhausted man still splattered with his friend’s blood.

“Now that I know what you are,” Hawke said, “I’m responsible for your actions.”

“You - ?”

“Anyone you hurt, anyone you kill – their blood is on _my_ hands now, because I’m letting you walk free. Do you understand what I’m telling you?” Hawke’s voice rang like steel in the clinic. He sounded like his father.

Anders looked outraged. “I never asked you - !”

“Control that thing, Anders,” Hawke said. “ _Please_. By all that’s holy, control it. Or I will kill you.”

Anders’s mouth opened. He stared at him, but did not speak as Hawke let himself out of the clinic.  He slammed the door behind himself. His hands were shaking as he tucked the maps into his belt, and he had to pause, to let his head fall back. He wanted to take a deep breath, but the noxious sewer air was too thick and too foul. He felt sick.

When Hawke opened his eyes, Carver was there.

“What do you think you’re doing, brother?” Carver demanded.

Hawke frowned.

“I don’t have the patience to deal with you right now, Carver,” he said. Even to his own ears, Hawke sounded exhausted. “You still have plenty of time to meet your friends. If you hurry, you might not even be late.”

Carver pushed him, hard enough that, unprepared, he stumbled back a step.

“You have me killing _templars_ ,” Carver said, and Hawke realized for the first time how pale his brother was, how wild his eyes. His hair stood on end as if he had been pulling on it, and Hawke had a sudden, clear image of him pacing in front of the clinic, waiting for him to emerge. “In a _Chantry._ ”

“Carver,” Hawke said. His brother pushed him again.

“How is this any better than working for Meeran?” Carver demanded. His voice broke. There were tears in his eyes. “How is it somehow holier, more moral, to kill templars so we can get some sodding Blight-cursed _maps_.”

“We need - !”

“We would be safe!” Carver shouted. “We wouldn’t need any of this if you weren’t – if you hadn’t - !” he pushed him again, and when Hawke lifted a hand to him, he punched him, hard, in the jaw. “ _They could have taken you_!” Carver shouted.

The silence that followed seemed endless and deafening. Hawke felt as if he were moving too slowly as he reached up to touch his jaw, as he turned his eyes back to his brother. His lip was split, and he tasted blood at the corner of his mouth. Carver was breathing heavily, wild-eyed, terrified. He shook off the hand that reached for him.

“It would be what you deserved, you bloody _dick_ ,” Carver said. “Dragged away in chains, branded, left a…a…a nothing, like that. A shell, that’s what you’d be. Maybe I’d like you better that way!”

“Carver – “

“And what would happen to me?” he demanded. “What would happen to mother, and uncle – you don’t think! That’s what’s wrong with you! You don’t think! _We could be safe_!”

Hawke wiped blood from his mouth, stared on it, too bright on his hand. “Maybe you’re right,” he said.

“Just forget it,” Carver snarled. “I have to go. I have plans.”

“Carver - !”

“Don’t wait up. Asshole.”

Hawke watched him storm away, into the sewers, alone. He took a step as if to follow, and stopped himself.

“Glad I’m an only child.”

Hawke turned. Anders stood in the door to the clinic, watching him, his eyes red and swollen, his clothes still splattered. His expression was severe.

“At least, I _think_ I’m an only child. No one from home ever bothered to _write_.”

“You heard all that.” It wasn’t a question.

“It would have been more difficult not to. I plugged my ears and everything.” Anders smiled, a quick upturn of lips, gone just as quickly, and moved forward, reaching for his face. “Here, let me heal that.”

“No,” Hawke said. He drew back from the offering hand, pressed his tongue against the cut again. As an afterthought he added. “Thank you.”

“Suit yourself,” the other mage said. He turned to head back inside, and a shaft of light illuminated how his robe hung limp on his bony shoulders.

Hawke said, “Wait,” and the other mage stopped, glancing back at him.

“Change your mind?” he asked.

Hawke lifted his chin. “When’s the last time you ate?”

“You – you want to know when I ate?” Anders stared at him. “You just promised to _kill_ me.”

“And I meant it, too. Come on. We’re going to get some dinner.”

\--

A cheer went up when he entered the Rose, and Carver felt some pressure in his chest release.

“You look like shit, Hawke,” Jame said, and Carver almost, _almost_ turned, expecting to see his brother behind him. Instead he scrubbed a hand over his face, and forced a laugh, and helped himself to a chair.

“Deal me in,” he said.

“Get this man a beer!” Sev called. “He’s going to win me some money.”

“We’ll see,” Carver said.

The Blooming Rose was bustling with activity tonight, as it often was at the end of the week, when workers from the docks and the mines got paid and managed to dodge their wives and their responsibilities for a few hours. The boys of the Red Iron had an unofficial official table in a corner near the stairs – prime real estate for keeping an eye both on the doors and the merchandise.

Carver had always liked the place – the tacky furnishings, the cheesy music, the smell of cheap perfume that lingered in the air. The beer was almost affordable, and better than what passed for ale at the Hanged Man, and the ladies knew how to make a man feel appreciated, even on the nights when Carver didn’t have the coin to do more than sit at the card table. There were rooms and _services_ for Hightown’s elite, but the common man had long ago carved out a corner for himself in the Rose, and his business was every bit as welcome. It was the only place in Kirkwall where Carver could go and feel respected.  Where he could be treated like a man, and not a little boy

Carver had scarce sat down before they made sure he had a drink in his hand and a girl on his arm, oohing and pouting at his “poor, tense muscles.” The girls of the Rose knew Carver’s luck at cards, and they liked it when he came in. They liked _him._

Carver won two hands in quick succession and what had been some light squeezing and rubbing on his shoulders, was now a full on massage. Cora was leaning into him, cheering his successes, whispering suggestions into his ear. If he turned his head, her breasts would be right there. She was his favorite – soft hands and encouraging words, ready smiles – but more often than not he couldn’t afford her time. Sabine was less genuine, kind of rough, and a little intimidating.

Carver was on his third mug of beer, and no longer picturing a brand on his brother’s forehead. That in itself felt like a victory. The small pile of coin at his elbow was growing, glinting with gold. Carver went ahead and paid Cora, just in case he lost the rest. He watched the coin disappear into a pocket between her soft breasts, and felt himself stir as she moved to sit in his lap.

It was going to be a good night.

“You should have seen it,” Jame was saying, shuffling the next hand. A cigar puffed thick blue smoke around his head, blurring his face. Rings glinted on his fingers. “Elrod – you know how slow that bastard is – he missed his mark, tore his britches right down the seam, with the guards coming. There he is, ass flashing white in the moonlight, six guardsmen on his heels!”

 “He made it out,” Sev said. “Geord got arrested though.”

“Geord just wanted a break from that wife of his.”

They had a laugh. Carver bought the next round of drinks, and cigars for the rest of the table. Cora’s hand squeezed his thigh. She laughed when he told her how pretty she looked.

“Not the same without you and that brother or yours,” Jame said, later. Carver had lost the last two hands, but he wasn’t worried. The beer was starting to get to his head. So was Cora. He could still walk away with some coin if he won the next round.

Still, Carver frowned.

“There is nothing in this Blight-forsaken city I want to talk about _less_ than that brother of mine,” Carver said. The brothers exchanged a glance.

“Look,” Sev said, “We might have an in for you.”

Carver examined and rearranged his cards. The hand looked shittier after the mention of Leo than it had before. “An in,” he repeated. “What does that even mean?”

“It means a way for you two to make peace with Meeran.”

Carver scoffed. Something tasted bitter in the back of his mouth. He chose two cards at random and put them face down, bluffing. “Meeran only wanted my brother,” he said, as casually as he could – which was to say, not very.

“There’s this job,” Jame said. “Meeran’s tearing his hair out over it, and he’s going to ask your brother, if he hasn’t already. Tim was supposed to deliver the letter a week ago.”

“First I’ve heard of it,” Carver said.

“Convince him to do it,” Sev said. “You boys take care of things all nice and neat, like you used to, and…”

“And there you go,” Jame finished for him. “Bridges mended, you come back where you belong. You know what a joke your brother’s been making out of you two? Everyone knows about that _expedition_ nonsense he’s gotten in his head. You two won’t last a year on your own – if he doesn’t get you killed outright.”

Carver frowned. He hesitated over his cards. He couldn’t think. All he could see was a brand, bright and bloody on his brother’s forehead. Cora’s perfume smelled like burning flesh.

As if on cue, the doors slammed open.

Jeven, the Captain of the city guard, had his own private table at the Rose, up by the bar. It was always kept on reserve for him, as was Faith, his favorite girl. He was there tonight, the pretty elven girl half undressed in his lap, and he frowned at the messenger boy who came flying in, wild eyed, hair askew. The boy approached Jeven’s table without being bid.

“Ser!” the boy panted. “Ser, I’ve been sent for you! Have to come – bodies! The mothers – they found bodies in the Chantry! Templars, sir!”

Carver could barely hear the exchange, but he could read the lad’s lips, and fill in the rest for himself. He had known it would happen. A part of his mind had been waiting for the revelation all night. He finished his beer and he folded, watched the last of his coin disappear into his friends’ pockets. He no longer felt quite so jolly. He didn’t watch Jeven rise, shoving the boy aside as he made his way to the door.

Sev and Jame were still waiting on their answer.

“I’ll try,” Carver told them. “That’s all I can do.”


	15. Sundermount

Leopold Hawke did not have much in the way of money, but he spent every copper he was carrying to buy Anders dinner at a Lowtown food cart.

“You can’t do that!” Anders protested when he saw him empty his purse for the vendor. He earned a glare for it – all molten gold and surprising severity.

“It’s paid for now,” Hawke said. “Do you plan to waste it on principle?”

“Do you plan to bully me into eating it?”

“If I have to,” Hawke said, oblivious to his attempt at levity. Hawke’s eyes moved over him pointedly, and Anders felt suddenly all too aware of his bony shoulders, his thin writs, and the overly eager manner in which his ribs tended to strain against the confines of his flesh like clever prisoners intent on escape.

Anders didn’t know how strong Hawke’s magic was, but though he was doubtful that the burly mage would stand much of a chance against Justice, it was clear the man was more than a little accustomed to using his size to intimidate others. Anders was the taller of the two, but he certainly lacked Hawke’s brawn. Even knowing he had a spirit of the Fade on his side, it was hard for Anders to face that golden stare without feeling a shiver of – of something.

Anders said, “All tight, then. We’re clear,” and Hawke nodded and took the food.

They sat on the steps of an abandoned home near the foundry, stretching out their legs into a night tinted red by the ever-present flames and sharing between them a dozen skewers of tough, salty meat that, Hawke assured him, probably wasn’t cat.

“Too valuable with this many rats in the city.”

Anders hoped he was right.

He ate nine.

“So,” Anders said, as he tried without success to pick out stars in the red haze of sky, “Leopold, is it?”

“Not to you,” the big mage answered. “To you, it’s Hawke.”

“….right,” Anders said. Impulsively, he added, “Anyone ever tell you what a supreme dickhole you are – or would I be the first?”

Hawke’s actually looked surprised, blinking and slowly bringing his gaze to Anders. Anders watched the man silently tongue the cut on his lip as he processed the question.

“I just bought you dinner,” Hawke said at last.

“After threatening to kill me!”

“Would you rather I _not_ give a fair warning?”

“My friend _just_ died.”

Hawke opened his mouth, then fell silent. He looked away again, tore some meat off a skewer with his teeth, and considered as he chewed. “The timing could have been better,” he allowed at last.

“You don’t say.”

“Sorry?”

“Do you really think that’s enough?”

Hawke didn’t answer, and was silent for a long time, and Anders thought that would be the end of it. He expected the grease from the meat would give him a belly ache, which, really, would be the perfect ending to a rather rotten day. Karl – no, his mind skittered away from the subject as quickly as it came up.

Hawke said, “Only my family calls me Leopold,” and Anders glanced at him, surprised to receive any explanation at all, even a belated one. “I’m – not fond of it.”

“All right,” Anders said. “Noted.”

Silence lapsed again. Anders found himself studying Hawke’s profile in the dim red light, struggling to make sense of this man, who would threaten him and feed him in the span of the same hour, this apostate who didn’t trust his fellow mages to govern themselves.

The thought spurred his anger, but the flame sputtered when Hawke looked at him, and offered him the last skewer. His eyes, Anders realized – contrary to everything else he’d seen, his eyes were gentle.

“I should get you back to Darktown,” Hawke said at last, rising. When he looked away, the loss of that golden gaze was like a light going out. “The street gangs around here are pretty territorial. I’ll walk you back.”

“I’m sure I can handle myself,” Anders began. Hawke’s gaze returned, flat, stern, and Anders quickly lifted his hands. “But you’re going to walk me home. Right.”

Hawke snorted. He led the way.

\--

“What, so now you’re bringing the abomination along, too?”

“The abomination has a name, remember? Hello – I’m Anders.”

Carver’s head was throbbing, a constant pain that beat in his temples in time with his heart, then exploded outward, spidery fingers of agony that wrapped around his skull and squeezed tight. He did his best to ignore the mouthy blond, his attention fixed instead on his brother and the long slow look he gave, glancing first to the other apostate, then back to Carver.

“I want to keep an eye on him,” Leo said, blatantly, as if Anders wasn’t there. Irritating the apostate didn’t mollify Carver’s sour, slightly hungover mood, even as Anders spared Leo a frown.

“It isn’t as if I plan on going on a destructive rampage throughout the city the moment you stop babysitting me,” Anders said. Leo ignored him, hoisting a saddle up onto the back of one of the rented horses.

It had been a tense few days. Carver hadn’t quite forgiven his brother for the Chantry yet, but he had, very valiantly, tried to extend an offer of peace by talking to him about Meeran’s offer. It hadn’t gone well. Leo, stubborn, mule-headed git that he was, refused to see reason. He’d thrown the letter away, he said, and had no intention of doing shit for Meeran ever again.

So Carver punched him. Again.

They spent the next few days not talking, and Carver took some great satisfaction in watching the bruise on his brother’s face change colors. That damn beard couldn’t quite hide it, whatever he thought. Carver still went out with him on the jobs Varric found, because, really, Leo would have been helpless without him, but Carver made it clear that he wasn’t _happy_ to be there, and he certainly didn’t approve of some of the new friends his brother was making..

And then Leo decided it was time to see to something he had been putting off for a long time.

For Carver, personally, the timing couldn’t have been worse. He had to admit though, however grudgingly, that a year was more than enough time to avoid something. Time had always been the excuse, and money, and he was still surprised that his cheap, stubborn asshole of a brother had bent enough to even think to ask Varric to loan them enough to make the trip – to reach the Dalish atop Sundermount, they needed supplies, most importantly, and horses too if they were to have even the slightest hope of making it there and back in a single day. Carver wasn’t sure what, exactly, the terms of their deal was, just that he didn’t like it. The witch had waited this long – the promise would keep a while longer, surely.

Carver was not looking forward to riding a horse in the bright sunlight up a damned mountain. Adding in the company of the dwarf and yet another apostate had him more than a little cross. It was a perfectly reasonable reaction.

But Aveline was working and Carver would be damned if he’d let Leo leave him behind.

“Cheer up, Junior,” Varric told him, as they passed under the gates of the city. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“He probably left it in the privy,” Leo said. “With his breakfast.”

“Har har. I hate you both.”

The dawn was sharp on the horizon, the peaks of Sundermount jagged, like knives piercing the pale blue of the heavens. They were the only travelers on the road this early.

Leo rode with a tension Carver didn’t remember. His brother was many things, an asshole chief among them, but he had always possessed a natural skill when it came to animals, something effortless and instinctual, as unfair as his other talents. Yet today he was stiff in the saddle, his big shoulders locked, and Carver wasn’t sure if it was bandits or the Dalish he was worried about running into.

Varric should have looked comical on horseback. Carver wasn’t sure he had ever seen a dwarf ride before, but he seemed comfortable enough, keeping pace up beside Leo. He had a map spread out over his lap, already marked with various symbols Carver couldn’t get a good look at but assumed were jobs they could hit while they were out here, if there was time. He really didn’t fancy the idea of having to camp out on the road overnight.

“That Starkhaven thing?” Carver asked, overhearing a part of their conversation and riding forward. “You’re doing that?”

“Ah, Junior,” Varric chuckled. “Did you get a glimpse of the payout on that? Of course we’re doing it.”

“Killing mercenaries for doing the exact same thing we used to do?”

“It’s not the exact same thing,” Leo said.

“So you’re fine with that, but you won’t pick up Meeran’s job?”

“Carver…”

“Does it take deposed royalty to get you off your ass now? Is that where we are? Meeran is paying well too!”

“Is this Meeran an ex-boyfriend?” Anders asked.

He earned a glare from both brothers, and a chorus of “you stay out of this.” He only shrugged under their ire.

“It’s just one job,” Carver said. “Can we really afford to be this picky? Brother - !”

“I said no,” Leo said. “Now drop it and shut up.”

\--

It was nearly noon by the time they breached the outskirts of the Dalish camps, the sun high and hot overhead and Carver more miserable than ever. His stomach was very displeased with the lunches they had eaten in the saddle, and his head still felt stuffed with wool and he thought he was getting a sunburn. Worst of all, after a few hours of surly silence, Leo seemed to be feeling a little better. Varric had even coached a laugh out of him once or twice, and damned if Carver didn’t hate to hear it when he was in such a mood. When they’d come across the mercenaries they had decided to look for along the way, Leo and the dwarf had even made a sort of a morbid game out of seeing who could fell more.

They were high in the mountains now, the air thin and the path growing narrow. They hitched their horses to some trees before venturing toward the camp, slowly, cautiously, the bright red sails of the Dalish wagons like pinpricks of blood among the rocks. Music drifted from somewhere within the camp, and the spicy-sweet aroma of cooking meat. Carver’s stomach was less than appreciative.

“Don’t be alarmed,” Varric said softly, “But there are about a dozen arrows pointed at us right now.”

“I’m counting two dozen,” Leo said.

“Hold, _shemlen_!” a voice called, and Leo came to a stop. He extended a hand, and Carver, paying less attention, bumped into it. It took him a moment to pick out the shapes as a pair of elves seemed to materialize from a rocky outcropping, where they had been well hidden upon their approach. Their armor looked strange to Carver’s military-trained eyes, but there was no mistaking the lethality of the weapons they carried. “Your kind are not welcome among the Dalish.”

Leo kept his arm extended, as if he thought it was necessary to hold his brother back – as if Carver were fool enough to go charging at the two strangers who approached. He was frowning.

“What’s a shemlen?” he asked, and Carver couldn’t help but to snort.

“Elven gibberish,” he said. “What does it matter?”

He received a frown from the female of the two, even as the male hefted his sword, as if testing the weight. He smiled. “It means you’re not one of the people,” he explained, taunting. He wanted a fight. He said, “And you should leave. Now.”

“The sooner I finish my business, the sooner I’ll leave,” Leo said, his voice gone hard, his chin lifting in that mulish way of his.

The elven man lifted his lip in a sneer. “You have no business here,” he said, and Carver braced himself. He was reaching for his sword when the woman spoke.

“Wait!” she said. “This is the one the Keeper spoke of!”

“A _shemlen_?” the man asked. “I thought he’d be an elf.” He shared a long look with the woman, and there seemed to be some secret communication between them. Carver caught several subtle hand gestures before, as if one, they stepped aside. The man dragged his feet, reluctant, and the look in his eyes said how well he would enjoy seeing their blood.

“Enter the camp. Keeper Marethari has been waiting for you.”

There was a moment of hesitation from all but Leo, who stepped forward boldly, his shoulders square. He stopped when the man levelled his sword at his chest.

“Cause trouble, and you’ll meet our blade, stranger,” the man promised, with the kind of tone that promised he would welcome such an excuse. Carver waited for his brother to snarl some threat in return, but Leo only regarded the man for a long, silent moment before nodding, and moving past.

The Dalish had been here for some time. There was a strange kind of permanence to the positions of their carts that made it clear it had been some time since they had been moved. The paths were well trod here, and laundry hung to dry in the breeze. Playing children stopped what they were doing to stare as the group passed, and more than one young hunter drew arrows on them.

Marethari was pointed out to them by a suspicious young man with a load of laundry on his hip, who tried to hide the fact he was gripping a dagger behind his back.

The Keeper was a small woman, trim and tidy, and her golden face markings gleamed in the sun as she turned to face them.

Carver wasn’t sure whether or not they were supposed to bow. He had never met a queen, but her regal expression certainly reminded him of one, and he wasn’t sure Queen Anora herself could have matched this woman’s proud bearing. He was still debating what to do when Leo pulled the amulet off from around his neck and approached, no differently than he would anyone else.

“Marethari?” he asked. “I was told to bring you this amulet.”

Her proud expression didn’t alter, her eyes cool as they moved over their small party. Carver wished Aveline had been free to come with them. He would have liked another warrior at his back. He was beginning to wonder if they would make it out of the Dalish camp alive. His brother’s brusque way with words was certainly going to hurt them.

After a moment, Marethari appeared to come to some sort of conclusion. She folded her hands, a faint smile playing at her lips. “ _Andaran atish’an_ travelers,” she greeted. “Indeed, I am Keeper Marethari. Let me look at you.”

Carver thought she had already done that, and he only just barely managed to bite his tongue on saying so. She strode forward, and he felt shivers when her eyes met his. Her hand was cool as it briefly touched his forehead. She examined them each in turn before she finally fixed her gaze on Leo. She grasped his forearms as if they were old friends, and nodded in some unspoken sympathy, even as Leo’s brows drew down in concern.

“It has been a long, hard journey to this place, hasn’t it?” she asked. “And it is far from over. Tell me how this burden fell to you, child.”

Her voice was musical. Whereas the two who had confronted them on the way in had seemed dangerous and alien, there was something comforting about the Keeper that put Carver even more on edge. Marethari gave Leo’s arms a squeeze and released him, and he seemed to shake himself, as if coming back from somewhere far away.

“Your guards said you spoke of me,” he said. “How did you know I was coming?”

She smiled. She said, “I listened. To the wind. To the birds, as the hunters to. To my dreams. I watched the stars. There is great wisdom to be found all around us, if you know how to listen for it. But – I was not certain. Nothing is certain.”

Leo’s frown was thoughtful, his brows drawn down, but his shoulders were soft. He looked around the camp, his eyes lingering on their cook fires and their carts and their laundry. They had been waiting a year.

“You’re the leader of the Dalish?” he asked. “Why did the Witch tell me to bring this amulet to you?”

“I am the Keeper of this clan,” she nodded. “It is my task to guide my people and to ensure the old ways are not forgotten. As for _Asha’bellanar_ … I am tied to her, just as you are, by a debt that must be repaid.”

Leo glanced down at the amulet, rubbed his thumb over its gleaming surface. He was still frowning. “Exactly what is it I’ve been carrying around?” he asked. “Is it magic?”

Her laughter was soft, motherly. Carver shook off the urge to feel soothed. Suspicion was a much more comfortable cloak.

“It is a promise, child,” Marethari said. “Made by the one whose word still has weight. And therefore, it has terrible power. There are few things in this world stronger than a promise kept. Remember that.”

Leo’s thumb slid over the amulet again. He thrust his hand out, trying to hand it to her, but the Keeper would not take it.

“This amulet’s over rescued my family from the Blight,” Leo said. “In return, I agreed to give it to you. That’s all there is to it.”

“I honor you for coming to me,” she said, “But I’m afraid your part in this is not done yet.” She reached forward and took Leo’s hand, gently closing his fingers over the bit of jewelry, and Leo, for a wonder, let her. She smiled at him. “This amulet must be taken to an alter at the top of the mountain, and given a Dalish rite for the departed. _Then_ return the amulet to me. Do this, and your debt will be repaid.”

Leo glanced at it, then slowly withdrew his hand, placing the amulet around his neck again, where it had ridden, close to his heart, for the past year. He asked, “Are you going to teach me this rite for the departed?”

“I will send my First with you. She will see to it the ritual is done – and when it is complete, I must ask that you take her with you when you go.”

“Who is your first?” Leo asked, looking around, as if expecting her to appear. “First of what?”

“Your people would call her an apprentice or heir. Merrill would have taken my place as Keeper, but she has chosen a new path. Please, guide her safely from here.”

Marethari sounded saddened by her own words, and Carver rolled his shoulders, pushing back the urge to feel sorry for her. He jerked with Leo spoke.

“If that’s what you want,” Leo said, mildly, for him, and Marethari smiled without humor.

“It isn’t what I want,” she said, “But it is what she wants. You will find Merrill waiting for you on the trail just up the mountains. _Dareth shiral._ ”

Leo’s gaze followed where she pointed, and he didn’t glance at the others before he began to walk.

“Was it just me,” Varric asked, “Or was that deeply unsettling?”

“Let’s just get this over with,” Carver groused. He found himself jumping at birdsong, uneasy, unsure if it was really birds he was hearing, or Dalish hunters, planning out their strike. He caught sight of this First on the path ahead, her attention engrossed on something in her hands.

Someone must have made some noise, scuffed a rock with their foot. She rose, abruptly, turning to face them –

And Carver stumbled, and fell into his brother’s back. He didn’t notice how Leo caught him, helped him steady his feet. He no longer noticed his headache, or his upset stomach.

All he saw was her.

 

 

 


	16. Merrill

The more time Anders spent around the Hawke boys, the more they – and, in particular, Leo – began to make sense.

Leopold Hawke was a foul tempered, stern, severe, cruel hearted son of a bitch if one didn’t have the right perspective – if one was unaware of the feckless younger brother, who lost coin on women and card games almost faster than he could earn it, or the selfish mother, lost in the memory of better days, who put both the weight and the guilt of responsibilities she herself should carry on the broad shoulders of her eldest son, so that she could sleep in peace at night. If one didn’t know of the ghost of the gentle little sister, a mage with a vibrancy and life like sunshine, taken too early and too brutally, whose lack of presence within the household was so deafening, whose loss hung so heavy about Leo’s person, that it was like a physical presence even Anders, a stranger, could feel lurking in the corner of every room in the little flat the family shared. Even Hawke’s uncle, a Kirkwall native, seemed at every turn intent on burying his young nephew beneath a pile of garbage twenty years in the making.

Leopold Hawke was the sole reason his family had not joined the scores of unlucky Fereldan refugees congesting Darktown. If he wore a quick temper or a heavy brow, if he frowned and threatened and menaced, shoving his big muscles forward to cut an argument with brawn, it was because he was not allowed a single moment to soften. There simply wasn’t _time_ to smile.

When Anders realized this, it felt as if the world itself had somehow _shifted_.

He was still the man who had threatened him that day in the clinic, who watched him with that sharp, dark mistrust, with eyes that said _monster_ as they waited for the excuse to end his life.

But he was also the man who skipped a meal to feed a beggar, slipping coins he himself could not spare when he didn’t think anyone was looking, then turning his back on the slightest trace of gratitude. He was the man who insisted on walking miles out of his way to see that his companions made it home at night through the dangerous Kirkwall streets. He was the man who split his earnings, fairly, between whoever helped him, without a moment’s hesitation, glaring down any attempts at protest.

Anders had taken his threat seriously enough, and begun to watch him closely, and what he saw, he supposed, was the same as what Varric and Aveline did, for though no one approached him about it, the two seemed to have come to a silent agreement between one another, a promise to lift Leo’s burden whenever they could. It was a conspiracy, a pact, a bet. _Make Hawke smile._ Carver claimed his brother had no friends. Anders saw how he was wrong.

Leopold – Anders had never been good with rules, and it gave him a thrill to think of the other mage that way, privately, defiantly, where he couldn’t be caught – Leopold was much more than what he appeared to be; _Hawke_ , the man, was merely a front for something private and vulnerable and utterly, _utterly_ intriguing that Anders found himself, within the span of a week, intent on unraveling.

The trip up Sundermount might have been a pleasant one, were it not for the presence of the younger brother, surly and stubborn and complaining at every turn. Carver didn’t like the sunshine. He didn’t like his horse. He didn’t like their lunch. He didn’t like Anders.

Anders would have liked it better if it had been just himself and Leo on this journey. With Justice, the bandits and mercenaries they had faced along the way would not have been difficult to handle, and it would have given them time alone, to talk, time for Anders to work on the knot that was Leopold Hawke. It was easier to see beneath the exterior of _Hawke_ when Carver wasn’t around. If Anders was going to convince him he was worth trusting, it was that man underneath he would need to appeal to.

The sun beat down relentlessly, and what little breeze the mountain stirred up was foul with the scent of decaying things. Anders leaned on his staff and let his eyes travel the path they had yet to climb as Hawke bent to check the ragged remains of the skeletons they had just fought for anything that would be worth taking. Disturbed by the tread of their footsteps, the undead things had clawed their way from the ground and attacked. Carver, oddly distracted since they had started up the path, had almost failed to warn the party in time.

“The Keeper didn’t mention you were a mage,” Hawke said, as he shifted through the rotted remains of armor and clothing. He barely looked up at Merrill, the slight Dalish girl they had been tasked with taking back to Kirkwall with them. Even without the force of his amber eyed glare, she clutched her staff to herself and took a step back. Anders felt somewhat mollified that Hawke was as terrible with _other_ newcomers as he had been with him.  

“All Keepers know a bit of old magic,” Merrill told him, a touch evasively, before she rolled her shoulders and took back the step she had given. “The stories tell us that all elvhen once had the gift, but like so many things, it was lost. It’s a Keeper’s job to remember, to restore what we can.”

“Can’t demons possess Dalish mages?” Hawke asked, rolling his eyes upwards after a beat passed in which the girl did not answer him.

She seemed reluctant to continue this conversation, but did so, anyway. “It can happen,” she said. “And when it does, the clan must hunt and kill their own Keeper.”

“Does the Chantry know about the Dalish mages?” Hawke asked, and when he glanced, briefly, at Anders, Anders realized what he was on about. If this Merrill continued with them, Hawke would be bringing yet another mage into Kirkwall. Another mage whose control and discipline was questionable. Anders frowned fiercely at him, but Hawke seemed to fail to notice.

“They know,” Merrill answered softly. “Keeper Marethari told me that was one of the reasons we never camped too long in one place. They usually won’t pursue us if we stay away from the cities and keep moving.”

“You don’t know how good you’ve got it,” Anders said.

Merrill looked at him for a long, somber moment, then away. “My clan is now in more danger, having lost our halla,” she said, shaking her head.

Hawke’s voice was not gentle. “If you go to Kirkwall, you’ll be an apostate in a city full of templars,” he said.

Again she shook her head. The little braids and decorations woven into her hair bounced back and forth with the motion. She wouldn’t look at him. “I know that,” she said, “But if I don’t go to Kirkwall, I’ll be alone. A solitary elf is prey for anyone. In the city, I can get lost in the crowd.”

Hawke took a breath. His expression was like granite, and Anders could tell how little he liked having this surprise sprung on him. He could see him adding it up, the addition of the burden of one more mage, one more person whose actions he would find himself responsible for.

It surprised him when Hawke said, “I’m glad you decided to pitch in back there.”

Evidently, Merrill was surprised, as well. “Oh!” she said, and brightened immediately. Her hands moved like nervous little birds against the heft of her staff. “You’re welcome. I wasn’t sure I’d be much good! I – I’ve done a little fighting, but it was always alone. I’ll try not to hit anyone. On our side, I mean. I’m babbling again. Let’s go.”

Hawke nodded, and she beamed at him as he passed, and Anders felt a moment of – of supreme unfairness, he supposed, something sharp and bordering on jealousy, of all things, that that was the end of it, that Hawke hadn’t warned her to watch herself, or lectured her on her magic use. He had been almost pleasant, which was more than Anders had gotten, and Anders wasn’t a burden like she would be.

\--

“So,” the mocking voice of the Dalish archer seemed too loud for the little mountain pass. He rose, pulling the arrow from his kill, and looked at Merrill and those with her as if they were dirt. “The Keeper finally found someone to take you from here.”

They had come upon him unexpectedly on the path. The hunter, alone, had been set upon by a trio of the restless dead that seemed to infect the mountain, and he had dispatched them without need of aid from their group.

When Merrill answered with a curt, “Yes,” the hunter sneered.

“Then finish your business quickly, human,” he told Leo. “We cannot be rid of _this one_ too soon.”

“I’m sensing a story here,” Varric murmured, as the hunter pushed past them. Merrill twisted the fingers of her right hand within her left, fidgeting, eyes downcast for a moment before she lifted her chin and rounded on the passing elf.

“I’ve made my choice,” she said, and sounded more as if she was trying to convince herself than anyone else. Still there was a note of defiance to her. “I will save our clan. Whatever you think.”

The hunter ignored her, continuing without a word, but the amber gaze Leo levelled on the little mage was thoughtful, and serious, and not exactly friendly. She shoulders stooped. She took a deep, trembling breath. When she let it out, it was ragged.

“We should keep moving,” Leo said, in that iron bastard voice of his.

Carver tried to thump him with his shoulder as he passed but he missed, stumbled, and spent a few moments desperately hoping no one had noticed. He tried to play it off. Varric lifted his brows at him in amusement, and he fell back to the back of the party again.

Carver felt too aware of his every movement. His steps seemed to come too slow and too heavy. He was worried that he was breathing too loudly. He glanced at Merrill, who was using her staff to help herself over some of the more challenging parts of the terrain, her head down and her eyes sad. He offered her a smile, and almost tripped over a loose rock.

“That guy,” he said, when he’d regained his balance. “That guy seemed like a real jerk.”

“Everyone has a right to their opinion, I suppose,” she answered somberly. “Even when it is a stinky one.”

He laughed, a little bit too loudly, and she looked at him curiously. At least she was looking at him.

“Right,” Carver agreed, and found he had no idea what to say next. She smiled at him, vaguely, and began to look away again. She looked ethereal in the bright sunlight. Carver reached for something, anything, to keep the conversation going. She was going to be new in town, and he and his brother were going to be the only people she knew. Leo certainly wouldn’t look out for her. Carver would need to step up, to be that one friendly face that got her through this difficult time. He would take her out for dinner, that’s what he would do. Show her around town. Make her feel welcome. “I bet you like to eat!” he said.

She looked at him, slowly. “It’s all right, I suppose.”

“Uh, y-yeah,” he said. “Me too.”

“Smooth,” Varric muttered, up ahead. Anders laughed. Carver thought he caught a chuckle from Leo, too. He fell back a little further, let Merrill pass him. Shit. He was ready to settle in for a nice sulk when she looked back.

“It’s a little rough up here, but the path smooths out ahead,” Merrill told him. “Would you like some help?

“I can handle it,” he said. “I just wanted to take a minute. Enjoy the view. That fresh mountain air.” He took a deep breath. The air smelled like dead things. Merrill frowned at him as he began to cough.

“You shouldn’t do that,” she said. “It’s a little rank up here.”

“Right,” he wheezed. “Thanks.”

They walked in silence for a time, while Carver berated himself for being nine kinds of fool. When he blurted, “I’m really very good with women,” Merrill looked at him in a way that made him want to die.

“That’s very good,” she told him. “You’re a handsome enough boy. I’m sure you’re very popular.”

“I’m not a boy, I’m a grown man!” he protested. She giggled, and for just a moment that dark shadow of hurt that had filled her eyes from the moment they met lifted.

“All right, I’m very sorry, then.”

“Listen,” he said. “There are scores of women in Kirkwall who are absolutely in love with me. Dozens!”

She quirked her head. “Which is it – a score or a dozen?”

“…wh – what?”

“Well, a score is rather a lot more than a dozen, I think. Oh, but you must be very busy, having that many girlfriends. Is that why you’re so tired?”

“I’m not tired!”

“Then you’re like this all the time, then?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Up ahead, the group had stopped. Leo had his hands on his hips as he examined the rockfall that blocked their path. The abomination was nearby, talking at him, telling a shitty joke, by the look of the blond’s face, though Leo seemed mostly not to be paying attention.

“Oh, I forgot about the landslide,” Merrill said. “The path is blocked, but there’s a cave that should take us to the other side.”

Leo followed the direction she pointed. He frowned.

“Caves like that are usually filled with giant spiders,” he stated mildly.

“Probably,” she agreed. “But they shouldn’t be too much trouble. Not with a party this size. Shall we go on?”

Leo pressed his lips thinly. He looked patently annoyed, but finally he nodded. “After you,” he said. Merrill’s smile was somber as she moved to the head of the group, picking her way along the path with all the grace of a young fawn.

“Daisy, when we get to Kirkwall, you should join us for drinks at the Hanged Man – let us give you a proper welcome to the city,” Varric said.

“Dai – are you talking to me?”

The dwarf smiled. “It’s just a little dive, but it’s home to me. We play cards a couple times a week – I think there’s an open chair next to Junior with your name on it, if you want it.”

“That does sound exciting,” she said, though she sounded more sad than excited. “New in the city, and already my social calendar is filling up.”

Behind her back, Varric gave Carver a knowing look. The dwarf mouthed the words _you’re welcome_ , and etched a little bow, and Carver rolled his eyes. “I don’t need help,” he hissed. Varric only shrugged.

Merrill stopped when she reached the cave, and waited for everyone else to catch up. She fidgeted while she did, lovely little hands restless against her staff, head bowed.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted, when Leo reached them, spots of color bright on her cheeks. Once again Carver was struck by how beautiful she was, with those big guileless eyes of hers, the proud arch of her elven nose, those pretty pink lips. He almost tripped over his own feet again. “You’re really not seeing the Dalish at their best,” she said. “We’re a good people who look out for each other. Just – not today. Apparently.”

Leo was quiet for a moment before answering. “There’s more going on here than you and Marethari have told me,” he said, and for a wonder it sounded more like a statement than an accusation. Leo being gentle was an eerie thing, and Carver felt immediately defensive. He wondered what his brother was up to. What he was thinking, trying to put the girl at ease, when they both know he was going to be a royal asshole to her later down the line. Better for him to be honest now. Bastard.

Merrill shook her head.

“It’s a misunderstanding,” she said. “It doesn’t matter now.” Again Carver watched her lift her chin, and swallow down her sadness, and smile, so beautifully, so bravely. “Even if my people don’t appreciate my efforts, I _must_ see this through.” She nodded emphatically, convincing herself, perhaps, that leaving everyone she loved and everything she knew was the right thing to do. She rubbed her hands together, and managed another smile. She said, “Let’s go, then. Asha’bellanar isn’t known for her patience.”

“If there’s giant spiders in there,” Leo said, “I’m going to be very cranky.”


	17. Flemeth

There were giant spiders.

Of course there were.

Hawke let one more hot wash of fire go. Here, deep in the caves of Sundermount, there was no need for subtlety – no bystanders to fear the clear use of magic, no templars to run with their interrupts at the ready. The flames rolled from his fingers and arched, painfully bright, slamming into the twitching corpse with enough force to send it rolling a foot. The stench of burning hair and the sound of too-many eyeballs popping under the strain of the incredible heat gave him a feeling of satisfaction. He wiped sweat from his eyes and spun his staff, tucking the lower half under his arm as his eyes moved over the cavern. He watched for any movement as he prepared another spell.

“Hawke, I think it’s dead.” Anders looked at him with an expression bordering on concern.

“Maker, that’s a horrid smell,” Varric muttered. He hid the lower half of his face in the crook of an elbow, and looked at Hawke expectantly. “You want to poke it a few more times, Big Guy?”

Carver snorted.

Hawke scowled and straightened. He made himself clasp his staff in its place against his back, though his hands felt empty without it. It wasn’t the walking corpses that concerned him here so much as the giant spiders. One never knew what they were thinking. He rubbed his hand on his thigh. It felt clammy.

The caverns were eerily quiet in the aftermath of the battle, and the chill air quickly dried the sweat on his brow. Hawke could have sworn he heard the chittering of more spiders, somewhere behind them.

“It isn’t much farther now,” Merrill told him. “Look, if you tilt you head like this, you can see where the light’s coming from.” She demonstrated. Carver stared at her. Hawke brushed past.

“Let’s keep moving,” he said. He rubbed the back of his neck. The hairs there seemed to have been standing on end since the first arachnid repelled down from the cave ceiling. He suppressed a shudder.

“Is it a nice place, Kirkwall?” Merrill asked. She picked her way carefully, almost skipping to avoid a multitude of still-twitching legs. The fire’s orange glow lit the side of her face as she passed. “I’ve never been in a city before, you know. Is there lots to do?”

“It’s a shithole,” Carver told her, and her face fell.

“Oh dear,” she said. “That - that is disappointing.”

“Be fair, Junior,” Varric said. “It’s _our_ shithole.”

“Kirkwall,” Hawke said. “The asshole of Thedas.”

Varric chuckled. “They were going to use that for the city motto, but they couldn’t agree on a logo.”

“Humans have such…odd histories,” Merrill said.

Hawke reached a bend in the path and stopped, listening. He began reaching for his staff, slowly, but after a moment the sound died away. He waited a moment longer before he nodded, and they began on their way again. Water from somewhere above dripped down his shirt collar.

“You have to look at the bright side,” Carver told Merrill. “Most people are so busy looking for ways to keep food on the table, they don’t have time to get bored.”

“Where does the food run off to, do you think?”

“Are…are you serious?”

Hawke stopped again. They had been moving steadily upwards, and he could see it now, the path just ahead lit by daylight, the cave mouth opening. The path ahead was clear. His skin was crawling.

Anders was watching him. He reached out a hand, as if to touch Hawke’s arm, then dropped it without making contact.

“Why do you keep doing that?” the other mage asked. “Do you really think - ?”

“Move,” Hawke said.

“What?”

Hawke grabbed him and pulled, and had just a moment to see the startled look in his eyes before the arrow bounced off the wall where his head had been only seconds before.

Behind them, three corpse archers and two giant spiders, even larger and hairier than the last.

Hawke hated this fucking cave.

\--

Pulled, momentarily, close to Hawke, time seemed to slow. Anders caught the scent of the man, of fire and wood smoke and strong soap. He could feel the hard strength of his body, his arms, the sheer size of his shoulders. _Oh_ , he thought, startled, and then the moment shattered like broken glass, and the world came back into focus. Hawke pushed him away, his big hands reaching for his staff. He was shouting.

“Varric – to you left!”

And the dwarf was turning, slamming a bolt into Bianca and taking aim.

Anders felt the heat of one of Hawke’s fire spells, the whoosh as the oxygen caught from nothing and went hurtling toward the nearest spider. Carver was charging, the muscles of his biceps coiling as he lifted his greatsword and swung it hard at one of the skeletons. Even the little Dalish girl was summoning a spell, something strange and crackling that worried the back of Anders’s mind for a moment before one of the spiders was coming at him. His legs tangled against each other in some unfathomable way and he stumbled back, the creature looming above him, its jaws opening, all those tiny eyes black and gleaming and hungry. Venom dripped slowly, matting in the thing’s fur. Anders reached for Justice just as an energy, powerful, electric, lifted the hair on his head. A bolt of lightning crashed down, striking the spider once, twice, three times, and it skittered back, wounded but not dead yet, regrouping. Hawke offered one big hand to Anders, hauled him to his feet, his amber eyes scanning the cavern for the most immediate threat.

Carver and Varric had taken care of two of the archers, but Bianca was jammed and the other spider had shot some sort of sticky web at Carver before turning its attention on the dwarf. The other archer was taking slow aim at him – if Anders hadn’t known better, he would have called the tilt of its head decidedly mocking. Carver struggled to free himself, to cut his way free without also cutting himself while he was at it. Merrill vaulted over a naturally formed table of rock, firing a spell, and again Anders felt that strangeness, that wrongness, from her.

There wasn’t time to think about it. Anders grabbed up his staff, and reached for Justice.

\--

Hawke wiped blood from his lip and stared at the spider corpses as if daring them to get back up.

“Well!” Merrill said brightly. “That was exhilarating, wasn’t it?”

“I would choose another adjective, Daisy.”

“I can tell already this friendship is going to be _very_ exciting,” she said.

Carver flashed a smile. “Well, play your cards right, and you might be right.”

“I didn’t bring any cards,” she said. “Do you think I should get some?”

Hawke led the way out of the cave, shielding his eyes as he stepped out into the sunshine. After the cool darkness of the cave, the heat was oppressive, unreal. After the spiders, he was grateful for it.

But the path ahead was blocked.

Hawke extended his hand, and felt the hum of magic. It was a barrier, blue and shimmering and so old it made his teeth ache. He had never felt magic like this, ancient and sturdy and _hungry_. When he withdrew his hand, it was cold, and he had to shake it to get the feeling to return. He frowned.

“I can open the way forward.”

Hawke turned. Merrill had been the first after him out of the caves. While the others were still flinching in the bright sunlight, her full attention was focused on the barrier. Her expression was solemn, noble even, Hawke thought, a silent and measured respect in the attitude with which she regarded the magic.

“One moment,” she told him, and before he could stop her, she sliced her palm, neatly, as if it had been done many times before.

Three drops of blood fell to the ground. As they stirred the dust, a sudden wind picked up, stirring their hair. Hawke smelled something foul, and for just a moment he felt breath against his ear, a whisper he couldn’t quite make out. His stomach turned as he watched her close her eyes, her lips moving. Merrill stretched out her arms. The cut on her hand was gone.

When the wind died, the air felt unnaturally still and hot atop the mountain. The barrier was gone. For a moment they all stood still, silent.

Anders was the first to speak, moving forward, grabbing her shoulder and turning her to face him. “That was a summoning!” he said. “That takes blood magic! Are you _crazy_?”

Her large eyes were dark with defiance as she wrenched out of his grip. “Yes, it was blood magic,” she said. “But I know what I’m doing. The spirit helped us, didn’t it?” Merrill looked at Hawke, almost pleading. He felt cold. He felt sick. He could feel Carver’s eyes on him.

“Call it what it is,” Hawke said. His voice was hard, and quiet. It sounded like his father. “You summoned a demon.”

“Demons are just spirits,” Merrill said quickly. “Like honor, or joy. It’s not their fault they are what they are!”

“You know nothing of spirits!” Anders spat. “Don’t try to spread your ignorance.”

Merrill took a deep breath. Her hands were still, hard little fists at her sides. She looked away for a moment, and Hawke caught the silvery glint of tears at the corners of her eyes.

She had herself under control by the time she looked back at them.

“Be careful up ahead,” was all she said. “Restless things prowl the heights.”

She didn’t give them time to answer before she stepped onto the path. Carver pushed past, hurrying to follow, but Hawke and Anders and Varric remained where they were for a moment.

“Shit,” Varric said. _“Shit_.”

“You can’t let her continue with us, Hawke,” Anders said, thrusting a finger toward the way she had gone. “Do you honestly think Justice and I are the threat – with a blood mage right before you?”

Hawke brushed past without answering either of them.

Carver and Merrill hadn’t gotten far on their own. Merrill had stopped just on the edge of a place lined with the remains of – something. Monuments, perhaps. Carver was watching her, but giving her space, the air between them tight with silent tension. She didn’t turn, but spoke as Hawke approached.

“In the days of Arlathan, the elders came here to sleep. _Uthenera_. The endless dream, they called it. But they don’t sleep peacefully anymore.”

“Merrill,” he began.

She shook her head. “Please, Hawke, leave it. We can discuss it later. This place…” another shake of her head. She gestured ahead, where an altar waited. Hawke bit down on his words, and nodded. He began to move forward.

This was a haunted place. He could feel it, the presence and weight of memories held here. A stillness in the air, an unnatural silence. As Hawke drew near the altar the temperature dropped drastically. Clouds covered the sun.

Then the ground began to tremble beneath him. A cold breeze blew across his face. There was the sound of something grinding, stone upon stone.

Hawke turned as the dead began to crawl from their graves.

They were elven, and ancient, and came up from the ground with the smell of the grave. Warriors and archers and even a mage, twisted by time into something horrific. Their clothes were rotting from their bodies, and hungry jealousy burned in the empty sockets of their eyes.

“I’m beginning to hate this mountain,” Varric said.

Hawke had never agreed with anything more.

He reached for his staff, and opened himself to the Fade. The Veil was thinner here than he had expected. It amplified the rising tide of voices, the press of spirits who strained, greedy, against that invisible barrier, who howled and pled and _hungered._ Hawke stumbled a step, nearly overwhelmed with it before he caught himself with sheer stubborn force of will. In a moment of panic, he severed his connection with the Fade, and then one of the skeletal warriors was on him and he didn’t have time to dither about his choices, lifting his staff to block the down stroke of the thing’s blade. There was a moment of struggle before he finally managed to shove the thing off.

“A little help, brother?”

He looked up to find Carver overwhelmed by two warriors and the horror. Anders was a bright blue mark on the horizon, but he and Merrill were busy with the hunters. The creatures slowly backing Carver into a corner seemed to swat off Bianca’s bolts.

It took a matter of seconds. The warrior who had come at Hawke rebounded, and began to come at him again, and he reached for the Fade again, filled himself with magic, and incinerated it.

Demons pressed their faces against the Veil. It seemed to stretch, to threaten to break, pop like a bubble. Hawke called lightening and it stopped the creatures on his brother, distracted them for just enough time for Bianca to take one in the eye. A swing of Carver’s sword sent the other’s head flying. There was only the horror and the two hunters left, the latter of whom Anders and Merrill had a good handle on. Hawke swung his staff as the horror slowly turned, fixing its attention on him.

Hawke met its gaze.

His muscles felt tight and tired, as if he’d spent the day splitting wood. Hawke called fire, and took the horror full in the face.

Though smoke wafted from its rotting clothing, and its stench filled the air, it kept coming.

Hawke stumbled. He felt so tired, his limbs like lead. He fell to one knee, and struggled, fought to stay upright. He was growing cold. He could no longer feel his fingers. He wanted to sleep. He grit his teeth. He felt the demons of the Fade pressing, howling, _wanting_. The horror reached for him, and with all his strength he sent ice in an arc, piercing it. It paused –

And Carver’s sword cut deeply into its back.

“Bastard!” Carver said, and spat.

The creature whirled on him and he stumbled back and nearly fell, but managed to dart around it, to find his brother and help Hawke to his feet.

“A case of the vapors, brother?” he asked.

“Shut up and kill the thing,” Hawke growled.

Three crossbow bolts struck its chest, distracting it from them for a moment as it now whirled on Varric with a snarl. Hawke closed his mind to the pleas of the demons, working on his next spell, slowly, wary of even the smallest slip up, as Carver flung himself at the thing again. He saw one of Merrill’s spells strike it, and it actually faltered for a moment. He realized the other two skeletons must have fallen, leaving only this foe. With Carver flying at the creature, it was Anders who took Hawke’s elbow to help steady him, who sent a wave of magic to refresh him, help clear his mind, ease the remains of the creature’s spell. When he met his eyes, it was Justice he saw, eyes blazing blue with the Fade.

Hawke’s firebolt took the horror in the chest, and it fell.

The wind screamed in agony around them, and then was silent. Hawke retreated from the Fade slowly, carefully, watching for more surprises. He was vaguely aware of Varric checking the skeletons for any long forgotten money purses.

“I think it’s safe now,” Merrill said at last. She was breathing heavily, and the right side of her face seemed to be covered in blood, though Hawke could see no open wound. She smiled. “Place the amulet on the altar, and I’ll begin the rite.”

Hawke took a few more breaths. Anders, who was indeed Anders now, and not Justice, was still helping to support him. The other mage opened his mouth to protest, but Hawke pulled slowly away. Each step he made toward the altar was a little stronger than the last. He removed the amulet from where it had lain for a year, pressed to his heart, and laid it carefully across the amulet’s circle.

Merrill was right beside him.

“ _Hahren na melana sahlin_ ,” she began, somber, serious, the words lovely if meaningless to Hawke. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back. The breeze that lifted her hair was clean. “ _Emma ir abelas souver’inan isala hamin vhenan him dor’felas. In uthenera na revas.”_

She fell silent, and spread her hands as if in worship. Hawke was just beginning to wonder if there was something they were waiting on when the pendant began to glow, and swell – no, there was something emerging, golden, crawling from the depths of the pendant Hawke had worn faithfully for over a year, growing, larger and larger and –

Flemeth straightened. She rolled her shoulders, brushed a fleck of dust from her outfit.

And she smiled.

“Aaah,” she said. “And here we are!”

Behind him, Carver had taken a step forward, sword still in hand. Varric cursed, quietly, and jammed another bolt into Bianca in preparation. Hawke remained where he was, shoulders tense, jaw set.

Merrill was the only one to bow.

“ _Andaran atish’an, Asha’bellanar,”_ she greeted with the utmost respect. She kept her eyes planted firmly on the ground.

Flemeth looked at her with eyes gone soft and fond. “One of the people, I see, so young and so bright,” she spoke as if to herself, her words hardly meant for them, for when she raised her voice it was stronger. “Do you know who I am, beyond that title?” she asked.

Merrill fell more deeply into her bow. One hand gestured frantically for Hawke to do the same.

“I know only a little,” she said with reverence.

“Then stand,” Flemeth said. “The People bend their knee too quickly.”

Merrill looked startled as she lifted her gaze, as she slowly stood. Flemeth chuckled, and her eyes travelled over the others, before they landed at last on Hawke.

“So refreshing to see someone who keeps their end of a bargain,” she said. “I half expected my amulet to wind up in some merchant’s pocket.”

“You were inside the amulet the entire time?” Hawke asked. Her lips quirked. Her eyes were as unsettling as he remembered.

“Just a piece,” she said. “A _small_ piece. But it was all I needed. A bit of security, should the inevitable occur – and if I know my Morrigan, it already has.”

“What are you?” Anders asked. His eyes flickered, briefly, blue. “A spirit? An abomination? This is no magic I’ve ever seen!”

“And you would know of spirits and abominations,” she said. He stiffened.

“I’m a mage. Of course I know of such things.”

“Of course,” she agreed. She seemed very amused when she addressed Hawke again. “I,” she said, “Am a fly in the ointment. I am a whisper in the shadows. I am also an old, _old_ woman. More than that you need not know.”

“Why did you need me to bring you here?” Hawke demanded. His weariness showed. He meant the question to be inquisitive, only. Instead his voice came out hard, threatened. She laughed.

“Because I had an appointment to keep,” she said. “And because I did not want to be followed. You smuggled me here quite nicely.”

Hawke scowled. “I don’t understand. Are you some kind of a vision?”

“Must I only be in one place?” she laughed. “Bodies are such _limiting_ things. I am but a fragment cast adrift from the whole. A bit of flotsam to cling to the storm!”

“A fragment?” Hawke repeated.

Her voice, when she answered, was surprisingly gentle. “You do not need to understand, child,” she assured him. Hawke stiffened as she approached, though his expression remained hard. “Know only that you have saved my life, just as I once saved yours. An even trade, I think.”

There was something about her – it was a struggle to keep his wits, not to fall into complacency, lulled by her voice. Hawke spoke firmly. He said, “You should have told me what I would face.”

“Did I trick you?” she asked. “I asked you to bring the amulet, and you did. If I thought it was such an easy task, I might have asked anyone. But you have succeeded where others would not.”

“You have plans, I take it?”

“Destiny awaits us both, dear boy. We have much to do.” She drew herself up, her eyes regal yet warm, her hands folding before her. She smiled a bit, as if at some bit of secret. “Before I go,” she said, “A word of advice – we stand upon the precipice of change. The world fears the inevitable plummet into the abyss. Watch for that moment…and when it comes, do not hesitate to _leap_.”

She was silent for a moment, but Hawke did not answer. After a beat, she continued.

“It is only when you fall that you learn you can fly.”

“Stop speaking in riddles!”

She chuckled. Shook her head. “You’re welcome,” she said. Her gaze moved back to Merrill and she reached out. Her fingertips brushed, briefly, the Dalish girl’s cheek. “As for you, child, step carefully. No path is darker than when your eyes are shut.”

Merrill bowed her head. Her words were a whisper. “ _Ma serannas, Asha’bellanar.”_

The old woman nodded, and stepped away. “Not the time has come for me to leave,” she said. “You have my thanks…and my sympathy.”

Anders came forward quickly, agitated, as her form seemed to stretch and glow. She became a dragon, and she flew away.


	18. Lady Trouble

The soles of Carver’s boots had barreled right past the point of thinning to rapidly approach threadbare. Carver realized that he could feel every loose stone, every stick, and every crack in the pavement he encountered. His left pinky toe worried the corner of his boot, the nail catching on what remained of the leather in its brave quest for freedom. Adventurous scamp that it was, it had already escaped the confines of its sock.

Carver was pacing, back and forth, kicking up dust in front of a slightly leaning apartment building in Kirkwall’s alienage. He couldn’t remember the last time it had rained, but when he stepped in a puddle and felt the cold wet soak through the scrap of his sock, he decided to be optimistic and pretend it wasn’t something worse.

It was almost a distraction.

Carver could feel eyes on him, the elves of the alienage watching him with their curiosity and their mistrust and their silent resentment. They didn’t want him here, the lone human invading their space. He was sure he looked like trouble to them, with his sword and his muscles and his tattered boots, left to cool his heels while he waited for his brother.

This was all Leo’s fault – Leo, who had let Merrill stay with them at Gamlen’s for her first night in the city, then dragged her down to the alienage almost as soon as the sun came up. While he certainly had other things to do with his time, Carver found himself tagging along like he bloody well always did. Someone had to look out for Merrill.

And just as well he came along, wasn’t it? Carver was the one with the contact, a gambling buddy who happened to have a room for rent he could be persuaded to part with on short notice. Carver was the one who knew where they could get a good price on some cheap, slightly used furniture, too.

But it was Leo who would get the credit, no doubt – Leo who would come out looking like a bleeding hero because he fronted the money for the first month’s rent with gold they couldn’t afford to be spending, who put in a few extra to make sure the landlord would keep an eye out for her, make sure no one gave her any trouble. While Carver paced outside, pegged as just another human thug looking for trouble, Leo was the one who would get the credit for helping the Dalish outcast find her footing in the strange city. They would probably plan a parade, give him a damned medal.

Leo was in there with Merrill right now. Probably looming and glaring, scaring her shitless while he called her a monster – just for using a little blood magic, when it was clear she wasn’t _that_ kind of mage. Sure, she was messing with something dangerous, but she’d never _hurt_ anyone with it. Yet Leo was in there threatening her, like he had (rightly so) done with that abomination, Anders. He was probably making her cry and Carver would be in there right now if he thought it would help.

But somehow Leo would end up looking the hero, and Carver the asshole. Right. The unfairness of it stung his throat. He kicked a loose cobblestone, and the impact sent a jolt of pain up his foot.

Leo was taking too long. It had to have been at least an hour.

“I forgot something,” Leo had said. They had helped Merrill with her new, slightly shabby furniture, put her bed together, made sure she had a few essentials to get through the first couple days. They had been on their way out when Leo came to a stop in the doorway, and his voice had been thoughtful, casual, mild. It immediately put Carver’s back up.

“What could you possibly have forgotten?” Carver demanded. He had, unfortunately, already been on the other side of the door, standing just on the stoop, one leg in the street.

He’d stiffened when Leo said, “I’ll just be a minute,” and slammed the door in his face. The sound of the lock being thrown seemed to echo.

 _I’ll just be a minute_ , Leo said.

It had definitely, probably been almost an hour.

When Carver finally heard the door open, he turned quickly. His hands were like claws as they grasped his brother’s shirt. Leo grunted when he shoved him, hard, into the wall. The door bounced back, hinges creaking wildly.

“What did you do to her?” Carver demanded.

He saw something briefly in Leo’s eyes – surprise? hurt? – and he felt just a moment of doubt before his brother’s gaze hardened and his jaw set in that mulish way of his. The bastard didn’t even bother with answering him.

Carver shoved away, and hurried into Merrill’s little apartment.

The main room was empty, and Carver came to an abrupt stop, his momentum stalled along with his sense of urgency. Details. Leo had gotten the shoddy little bookshelf they’d found for her put up. At the table, two chipped floral teacups stood empty. For just a moment, Carver’s mind taunted him with a visual: his big burly brother sitting and sipping demurely from one of those cups, his pinky curled like an Orlesian dandy.

“Oh, Carver!” Merrill said. “I thought you’d be long gone! Did you forget something, too?”

He turned. She had her new, dented little teapot in hand, and her eyes were red and swollen. His fury immediately returned, rushing past the small moment of humor.

“What did he do?” Carver demanded, moving swiftly toward her. “If he hurt you - !”

She looked baffled for a moment, then reached up to her tearstained face. “This? Oh, no! Just a bit of homesickness!” she said. “Your brother really was a dear, staying to talk me through it. He must have seen how frightened I was, being left all alone.”

“He - ?”

She laughed, and moved away from him, and he watched as she refilled her teacup. When she met his eyes, she was still smiling. “You look as if you expected him to gobble me up!” she said. “Don’t you trust your own brother?”

He didn’t, and the realization staggered him like a hard blow.

They spent every day together, and yet somehow Leo had begun to feel more like a particularly irksome acquaintance than a brother. They had never been extremely close, but lately it was as if they were speaking different languages. Carver found that he suddenly missed Bethany very keenly. She had always been the one to bridge the gap between them.

Merrill was still looking at him, expectant. She gestured to the little dented pot. “I said, do you want some tea? Creators, you look terrible!”

“Merrill,” he rasped. “Did Leo talk to you about the blood magic?”

“Oh, yes,” she said cheerfully, sitting. “We had quite the chat about it.” She poured Carver some tea, using the same cup Leo had used, and motioned him to the other chair. He approached slowly.

“What…” he had to pause, to clear his throat. “What did he say?”

“Oh!” she said. “He said if I became an abomination, he’d kill me.” She looked up when he didn’t answer, and laughed at whatever she saw on his face. “Well, we Dalish do the same thing, didn’t I tell you? If our Keepers fall prey to the demons? I thought it was very sweet of him to think of it.”

“Of course you did,” Carver said. “Of course you bloody well did.” He sank down, hard, into the seat Leo had no doubt used during his visit.

Merrill looked suddenly concerned.

“Oh, dear – your face! I’ve said something wrong again, haven’t I?”

\--

A dwarf, a blood mage, and an abomination walk into a bar.

It sounded like a setup for a bad joke, Hawke reflected – which, in its own way, was an interesting indication of the turn his life had taken. The pride and hope he had felt when he first left Lothering to seek his fortune elsewhere seemed like someone else’s faulty memory. Now his life was about hunger, and fear, and the persistent weight of doubt – the ever-present knowledge that every choice he made was somehow going to be the wrong one.

It haunted his sleep lately, wondering what he father would think if he could see him now.

Carver came trailing behind the rest, looking none too pleased to be there. Sullen and resentful were the new fixtures on his face, like a bad haircut that just wouldn’t grow out. Hawke knew that was his fault, too. Carver hadn’t come home to Gamlen’s in days.

“Now that the gang’s all here, how about I buy the first round?” Varric suggested. He took the chair next to Aveline, who had already been at the table with Hawke when the rest arrived. She was beginning to wear the look of someone more comfortable in her armor than out of it, but tonight she was dressed as a civilian anyway, and she smiled at the offer.

“In that case, I’ve got the second,” she said. “I think the nonsense I’ve had to put up with this week warrants a second drink.”

“Three cheers for the new guard captain,” Hawke said, serious, and Varric laughed.

“I’ll drink to that,” the dwarf agreed. He began to wave one of the barmaids over – the pretty one Carver liked, Hawke thought, though his brother hardly seemed to notice her tonight.

Carver said, “Then I’ll get the third round. We should celebrate Merrill’s first week in the city while we’re at it.” He flushed when the declaration failed to net him the hail of gratitude he was evidently expecting. “I have my own money,” he said, defensive. “You don’t expect me to contribute every last copper to the expedition.”

“Do you contribute _anything_ to the expedition?” Anders asked, low, as he helped himself to the seat next to Hawke. Fortunately, Carver didn’t hear him.

“It’s a very sweet offer, Carver,” Merrill assured him. Hawke watched his brother puff himself up, and a few things clicked into place.

It was good to see his brother smile.

They placed their order, and when Hawke caught Varric adding in food for the table, the dwarf only met his accusing stare with a light hearted shrug.

“You can’t fault a man for being generous with his friends, Hawke,” he said, and raised his mug in salute. After a deep drink, he turned to Merrill. “So, Daisy, how’s life in the big city?”

“Oh, it’s very exciting,” she said. “I got lost four times yesterday! Some wonderful ladies on the street corner helped me find my way home – and when I got back, there was a rat this big on the table!” she held her hands apart, indicating the size of a small dog, and beamed. “I think I’ll name him James.”

Carver choked on his ale, and Aveline had to give him several hard thumps on the back before he could breathe again.

Since it was the weekend, the Hanged Man was busier than usual. Hawke had been lucky to claim a table early, though his size and reputation might have had something to do with it, as well as the fact he and Aveline had arrived at roughly the same time and Aveline, the bar’s patrons had quickly learned, was even less patient with being trifled with than Hawke himself. Hawke settled back with his ale, and as the trays of food were brought over, he studiously pretended not to notice Anders shoving napkin-wrapped chicken wings into his robe for later. He did, however, sacrifice a few precious coins to make sure the food kept coming. At the rate he was going, it was going to take an eternity to raise enough for the expedition, but he couldn’t in good conscience leave everything up to Varric’s much more generous wallet.

The crowd at the Hanged Man was mostly well behaved, even on nights like this, when the place seemed stuffed to the rafters. They were miners and dock workers, day laborers in from the farms on the outside of the city, even a few of the farmers themselves. They worked hard and they were tired, and they wanted a few hours off their feet with some cheap booze to lull their aches.

Which was why it drew attention whenever someone made a commotion.

“Me and my boys will get our money’s worth, bitch!”

“Oh, no,” Aveline said under her breath. Hawke turned to eye the bar, catching sight of the action as a curvaceous woman in very little clothing repeatedly slammed a man’s head into the bar. “I am _off_ duty tonight, Hawke. Don’t get us involved.”

Hawke barely heard her.

At the bar, the man’s friends were less than appreciative of his rough treatment. One grabbed the woman from behind and lifted her, struggling, as the other grabbed a bottle to hit her with. Hawke was already rising from his seat, a hand straying to his staff, when she headbutted the man who held her, and ducked, ensuring he got a face full of glass instead. The entire bar was watching now, with a cheer for the entertainment as she punched the assailant who had held the bottle, and sent him reeling.

“Hawke, _really_?” Anders asked. “Can’t we have a quiet evening? For once?”

The first man had rallied himself, and drawn a blade, and Hawke prepared to intervene –

But the woman turned, a knife in hand, and the man barely stopped in time to keep from impaling himself. A bead of blood welled up where her knife touched his throat.

By now, Hawke had moved close enough that he could hear her words, though they were pitched low, a smile playing at her lips. Her eyes were deadly serious.

She said, “Tell me, Lucky, is this worth dying for?”

Evidently, it wasn’t. “Lucky” and his goons fled, and the Hanged Man’s drunken masses gave a cheer. At some tables, coin changed hands. The woman flashed a smile and gave a little bow, then picked up someone else’s shot, saluted, and drank it down.

Hawke was about to return to his table when she caught his eye. She gave a little shudder as she swallowed the shot, and flashed another of those huge, wildly dangerous smiles. “My,” she greeted, and eyed him up and down in a rather obvious way. She took her time about it, and when she was done, she leaned back against the counter and licked her lips. “And here I thought the only men in this place were besotted fools who couldn’t hoist the mainsail.” She crooked a finger, motioning him closer, and though he wouldn’t be able to explain it to himself later, he moved to join her at the bar.

“You haven’t met me,” Hawke said, and watched her smile grow. She motioned for two more shots.

“I’d like to,” she said, and waved her hand, indicating for him to take one of the drinks. Hawke curled his fingers around a glass. They both drank, and their shot glasses hit the bar with a synchronistic chime. “I’m Isabela,” she said. “Previously _Captain_ Isabela. Sadly, without my ship, the title rings a bit hollow.” Her eyes moved past him, briefly, then returned, taking him in once again. She cocked her head. “You’re Fereldan, aren’t you? You have that look about you. I was in Denerim, not too long ago.”

He felt a hand on his arm, and glanced back to find Anders there. He said, “Trouble’s over. Come back to the table,” but Isabela spoke up again, earning a frown from the blond mage.

“You know,” she said. “You might be just what I’m looking for to solve a little problem I have.”

“Solve your own problems,” Hawke said. Then, “Thanks for the drink.”

She shook her head, surprised and frustrated by the refusal. She was used to wrapping men around her little finger, that much was clear. Unfortunately for her, Hawke’s taste ran in a different direction. Really, it had been so long since his tastes had run in _any_ direction, he’d begun to wonder if his running days were over. Just as well if they were. There wasn’t time for that, anymore.

“You haven’t even heard me out,” Isabela said as he began to turn back. “There’s excitement to be had – or coin, if excitement isn’t your thing.” Her eyes dropped, suggestively, below his belt, and she shrugged, as if to suggest something very similar to what Hawke had been thinking. He frowned, but she continued. “Someone from my past has been pestering me. I’ve arranged for a duel – if I win, he leaves me alone – but, I don’t trust him to play fair. I need someone to watch my back.”

“Come on,” Anders said. But Hawke found himself turning. She was in trouble. And she had mentioned coin.

He let his reluctance show when he asked, “Who’s this person you’ve arranged to meet?”

He expected to be rewarded with a smile, but Isabela was serious now, games set aside. “His name is Hayder,” she said. “We worked together, back in Antiva. He’s never liked me. He’s been asking about me all around Kirkwall. Thought I’d get it over with and meet him face-to-face.” Now the grin. The flippant shrug. Hawke’s frown deepened as he realized she was afraid.

“You wanted information from Lucky,” he said, sharply, as Anders gave a heavy sigh and leaned against the bar in defeat. “What was it?”

Isabela pursed her lips. Her eyes darted away for a moment, and it seemed to take a long while before she finally decided to answer. “I asked Lucky and his boys to help me track down something I lost,” she said.  “They failed to do it. It’s nothing to worry about, and this is much more important.” The way she fingered her money bag was more than suggestive. He had met desire demons who were more subtle, but if he had been Carver, he would have already been out the door, away on whatever errand she wanted from him.

Instead, Hawke asked, “Why a duel?” and her annoyance grew.

“I like a duel,” she said. “It’s what I do – and if I win, he’ll be dead. Problem solved!”

“Oh, just that easy, is it?” Anders asked. Hawke ignored him.

“What makes you think _I’m_ right for this?”

“You saw me talking to Lucky, didn’t you? Those boys couldn’t manage simple information gathering. I can’t trust the riffraff in this place to do anything right. But you…you’re different.”

“You’ve heard of me,” he realized.

She smiled. “I’ve heard of you,” she agreed.

Hawke still didn’t like it, still felt as if there was something she was leaving out, but he took a step back, and motioned for her to join him at the table he shared with his friends.


	19. Isabela

“Tonight?” Aveline repeated. “Absolutely not. You can’t be considering it.”

“I’m not in a position to be turning down jobs, Aveline,” Hawke reminded her.

“Dueling is illegal, Hawke,” she reminded him right back.

“Oh you poor, poor dear,” Isabela said. “Are you afraid of a little trouble with the law?” she leaned in toward the redhead, as if for a kiss, and Aveline’s eyes narrowed. She reached up and planted a finger in the middle of the raider’s forehead, pushing her, firmly, back.

“I _am_ the law,” Aveline said, and Isabela practically purred.

“Mmn, kinky.”

“Could – well, do you suppose I could come along?” Merrill asked. She blinked in confusion at the surprise the question garnered. “Well, why wouldn’t I be up for a little adventure?” she asked. “A midnight duel sounds terribly exciting, doesn’t it? And I need to earn my keep, too. It’s time I start working to pay Hawke back for his generosity.”

“If you’re going to involve Merrill in this nonsense, then I’m coming along, too,” Carver said, which was the first full sentence he had said to his brother since accusing him outside of the Dalish girl’s apartment a week ago. He squared his shoulders as if readying for a fight.

“I thought you had plans tonight,” Hawke said, as mildly as he could. His brother scowled anyway.

“I’ll cancel.” Carver’s answer was curt.

Hawke rubbed his temples.

As they talked, Anders quickly and quietly finished off the rest of the plate of chicken. He licked his long thin fingers with a noisy wet sound, and looked startled when he realized Hawke was watching him. The mage ate like a horse, when there was food, but he never seemed to put any meat on his bones. Hawke didn’t like it.

“I’d love to play backup,” Varric was saying, and Hawke turned his attention, reluctantly, away. “But my agent is already calling for my blood. If I don’t get that last chapter to a courier by breakfast tomorrow morning, my career is sunk.”

“It’s too late to keep Anders out,” Hawke decided. “Carver, Merrill, and I will just – “

“I’ll go!” Anders interjected. He seemed to shrink for a moment when Hawke’s gaze returned to him. Hawke was actually able to watch the other mage gather himself.

“Don’t you have to open the clinic tomorrow?” Hawke asked. “You should get your rest while you can. You don’t take care of yourself.”

Hawke had spoken firmly, and was still frowning, but something about his words seemed to please Anders, whose entire face lit up for a moment. He said, “No, I’m definitely in. It’s settled.”

“Well, lucky me,” Isabela said. When she perched herself on the edge of the table, it very quickly became obvious that Carver could see up her skirt. He flushed red, almost purple, and spilled his ale down the front of his shirt when he tried to drink. He leapt out of his seat when Merrill tried to help clean him up with a napkin.

“No! No, it’s fine! I’m fine!”

Isabela was completely aware of the mayhem she caused. She took Carver’s cup from him and drank down what remained in a long series of gulps while he gaped at her, mouth working soundlessly, hands clenching around napkins. He jumped with Hawke cleared his throat.

“Should you really be drinking if you plan to be fighting a duel?” Aveline asked.

“Awh, sweetness, we have to keep things interesting, don’t we?” Isabela turned back to Hawke, and made sure he had a clear view down her shirt. “Midnight, Hightown,” she said. “Don’t forget.”

Hawke lifted his drink. “Just make sure you have the coin,” he said.

\--

“My but people are grumpy this time of night,” Merrill said, and her cheery choice echoed, grimly, down the deserted Hightown streets. Carver was glad they weren’t in a residential neighborhood, otherwise – well, the fighting would certainly have alerted more attention than the Dalish girl’s commentary, anyway. It turned his stomach to realize how he was getting used to leaving dead bodies on the streets.

The displeased look on Leo’s face almost made him wonder if his brother was thinking something similar.

“Haydar sent them,” Isabela said, rising from a crouch over one of the bodies. When she wiped her arm across her cheek, it left a smear of blood like some kind of grisly war paint. It looked black in the moonlight. She tucked the little purse she had taken from the corpse into her cleavage, and planted her hands on her hips. Her red lips were twisted into a frown as she surveyed the mess she had made. “We should search the bodies,” she said. “I need to find out where he is.”

“Drag them over here,” Leo instructed. He hooked his arms around one man’s ankles, and began to haul him out of the street, where he would be slightly less noticeable for a time, if they were lucky. They didn’t need the bodies found until they were well clear of the area. No reason to put Aveline in a difficult position if they could help it.

If Isabela was bothered, or at all surprised by the ambush, she didn’t show it. They rifled pockets and moved the bodies, and the night seemed too hot, too still, too silent around them. Carver found himself staring into one man’s sightless eyes, and wondered if they would follow him the next time he tried to sleep. These men had attacked them first, it was true, and the fight had certainly been kill or be killed. But their lives wouldn’t be on his hands if Leo hadn’t gotten him involved in this nonsense.

He reached out and closed the man’s eyes.

“Ah!” Isabela exclaimed, and snatched a piece of paper from Merrill’s hand. She read it, quickly, having to hold it close to her face in the dim lighting. She crumpled it, and threw it down when she was done, and spit on the corpse who had held it. “Hiding in the Chantry and sending thugs to finish me off? Coward. He’ll not get away with this. Come on.”

“Wonderful,” Carver said. “Now we’re killing _more_ people in the Chantry? This is a habit of ours?”

Leo let Isabela get ahead of them, and didn’t immediately follow, instead turning to his brother as Anders and Merrill moved on. Carver couldn’t quite make out his expression in the moonlight, and he wasn’t sure he believed what he thought he did see.

“Do you want to go back?” Leo offered.

“I – what?”

“If you don’t want to be involved, you don’t have to be.” His voice was more gentle than Carver would have expected. Pitched low – private. He said, “There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to involve yourself.”

“We don’t even know who she is. What if she’s the bad one? Is it worth it?”

“Do you want a definitive answer?” Leo asked. “I don’t have one. I don’t know anymore. That’s all I can give you.”

“That’s nothing.”

“I know.”

They were quiet for a long moment, broken only by Isabela, calling to them. “You two coming along, or what? I don’t pay hard cold coin for performance anxiety.”

“I’m going,” Leo said. “If you come along, it’s your choice.” He turned away.

Carver almost turned back.

He didn’t like the atmosphere of the Chantry after dark. He didn’t like how still it was, how quiet, how haunted it felt. It seemed as if, if he listened hard enough, waited long enough, he would be able to hear the generations of people who had come here to pray, to worship, to beg the Maker’s mercy. Surely such a holy place was free of ghosts.

Anders paused, just inside the door, and his posture was tight and nervous. His gaze turned, as if pulled, to the upper level, where he had murdered his friend. It hadn’t been so long ago. Carver doubted he had been back to the Chantry since that night. He wondered if the mage felt Karl’s presence, even now.

Leo laid a hand on Anders’s shoulder, the touch brief, but heavy, as he passed, and Carver saw the blond take a breath.

“Isabela,” a voice spoke suddenly, and a figure moved in a shadows. A man came forward, wearing armor and a longsword. Even in the dim lighting, there was no missing his superior sneer. “Should’ve known you’d find me here.”

She smiled. “Tell your men to burn the letters next time.”

There was nothing friendly in the man’s return smile. He said, “Castillon was _heartbroken_ when he heard about the shipwreck. You should’ve let him know you survived.”

She examined her nails, as if already bored with the conversation. “It must have slipped my mind,” she answered.

He chuckled. The sound was low and dangerous. Carver knew there would be more blood tonight, just as he knew the sun would rise in the morning. He glanced at Merrill, but her expression was grim, and unreadable. Anders’s gaze was fixed only on Leo, waiting for a signal.

“Where is the relic?” Hayder asked. Isabela shrugged.

“I lost it,” she said. “Castillon’s just going to have to do without.”

“Lost it?” he repeated. Slowly, more soldiers began to emerge from the darkened Chantry around them, like spilled wine slowly running out of a jar. Carver tensed. “Just like you “lost” a ship full of valuable cargo?”

Isabela almost took a step forward. “They weren’t cargo, Hayder, they were people!”

Hayder’s lip curled. “Those slaves were worth a hundred sovereigns a head, and you let them scurry off into the wilds – and now the relic’s gone, too. Castillon won’t be happy to hear that, I _promise_ you.”

“Will someone explain what’s going on?” Leo demanded.

Hayder tutted, and for the first time he looked from Isabela to those she had arrived with.

“Isabela’s been a _very_ bad girl,” he said. “Ruined a perfect business deal, and then ran away – she didn’t tell you?”

“I told him enough!”

“Really?” Carver asked. “Because it doesn’t seem like it.”

“I said I arranged for a duel, which I did. I also said you wouldn’t play fair, which you didn’t.”

One of the soldiers behind him snickered. Carver shifted, just short of drawing his sword. He didn’t want to be the one to start this, but his nerves were a razor thin wire. Isabela glanced at Leo almost pleadingly. Now the smoldering temptress was gone. Now she was a girl, frightened and friendless. Carver saw his brother’s jaw set, his decision made, even before she spoke.

“We can talk later if you want,” Isabela said. “Right now, we have other problems.”

Leo was frowning, but Carver caught that tight nod of his head. He knew what his brother would do, even before Leo moved, putting himself between Isabela and her enemies. Leo’s voice was firm and hard when he said, “Your threats end here.”

Behind him, Isabela moved. Her knife narrowly missed clipping him as it sailed through the air to take one of the soldiers out.

Then chaos erupted.

\--

One day, Anders wanted to take Leo aside and really examine his magic technique. It was truly unlike anything he had ever seen at the Circle. The usual forms and techniques were only apparent if you squinted and _really_ looked for them. He had to have learned them at one point, then tossed them out the window, leaving himself open to improvisation and situational needs. Here, without templars or bystanders to catch him in the act, his spells were big. He wanted to make an impression on their enemies, give them a moment of fear and doubt, of hesitation, so they wouldn’t realize how terribly outnumbered he was. Fire rained from the sky, and lightning crashed with deafening booms. He put his entire body into the act, muscles bunching, flowing – arms, back, thighs.

Anders had never seen his like. For just a moment he imagined discussing it with Karl, pictured the way the other man’s eyes would light up with excitement. The way Leopold Hawke wielded his magic was revolutionary, and Karl would have loved to explore it, himself.

Then he remembered his friend was dead, and by his hand. The pain he felt was as fierce and sharp as it was a few weeks ago. He stalled, for just a moment. For just a moment, the battle was replaced by the image of Karl’s face, his troublesome smile.

Leo jerked him back to reality – in the literal sense, a hand on his collar pulling him out of the way of a raider’s blade. Leo blocked the blow with his own staff, and sent the fellow flying, and looked at Anders in concern.

“Are you all right?” he asked, and the blond felt his heart do something unexpected.

“Y – yeah.”

“Then get your head on right, and pay attention,” he said. He released him with a little push. “Go heal my brother.” Before Anders could comment, Leo had turned, and a massive blast blew back the rebounding raider.

Anders swallowed, and hurried to Carver’s side. As soon as he was able, the fallen warrior pushed away from him.

“I wasn’t completely down!” Carver snarled. “I can still do this!” He looked desperately to see if his brother had seen him falter, but Leo was not paying attention, his staff swinging like a fighter’s bo. Carver pushed himself up, and charged back into the fray.

“I should have done that a long time ago,” Isabela said, later, after the last had fallen. The kick she lobbed at Heyder’s corpse was particularly vicious. She gave Leo a red-lipped smile as she removed her bandana, which had gotten knocked lopsided during the fight, and shook out her thick dark curls. “Castillon won’t hear about me from Hayder now, but he’ll find me eventually,” she said, as she bound her hair back under the scarf once again. There was a certain way she held her body, a certain tilt to her head, the suggested a world of things, should Leo care to indulge her. “I’ll just have to get him the relic,” she decided. “It’s as simple as that.”

Anders was oddly pleased to see that Leo’s expression remained its usual solid stony self, his eyes on her face and not her decidedly ample décolletage. He had his staff once more on his back, and his arms crossed, and he considered her words for an uncomfortably long moment before speaking.

“What’s so interesting about the relic?” he asked.

Isabela licked her lips. She shrugged. “I don’t really know,” she said, “Except it’s worth my weight in gold. Castillon had me chasing it down as payback for freeing his slaves…to be honest, I think he just wants me dead. But that would be letting me off easy.”

Leo had more questions for her. Whether or not her ship was destroyed by a storm (it was.) Who Castillon actually was (Antivan Merchant Asshole.) Did she really free slaves? (Yes.) Anders found it difficult to pay attention. His eyes kept drifting to the Chantry’s upper level. He kept waiting, expecting Karl to lean over the railing, to wave to him, and smile. A kinless tranquil found mysteriously murdered in a room full of dead templars at the Chantry didn’t receive a funeral. Anders had tried to find out when and where his body would be cremated, and almost exposed himself in the process, all for nothing. Karl was gone now, ashes let loose on the wind. At least he was free.

At last something Leo said drew his attention. “If getting the relic gets this Castillon off your back, then I’ll help you retrieve it.”

Beside Anders, Carver made a noise of irritation.

“I still don’t know where it is, but you’ll be the first to know if I hear anything,” Isabela promised. She handed Leo the payment she had promised, a small purse of coins that would be pretty pitiful once he divvied it up like he always did. Anders knew his share would go to supplies for the clinic, rather than food or new robes. He had priorities, however Leo liked to scold him. “Thanks for helping me out with Hayder,” Isabela said. Her smile returned. “I think I’ll tag along for a while. There might be something I could do for you – and I have a room at the Hanged Man, if you’re looking for _company_ later.”

“Not bloody likely,” Carver snickered, and earned a glare from his brother.

Leo said only, “Thanks for the offer.”

Isabela hung around while they checked the raiders’ corpses for valuables, and watched as Leo split up the night’s take among them. As always, the shares were equal, despite how pressingly he needed the coin. Anders knew Leo kept a jar hidden somewhere at home full of his money for the expedition, and that he put as much as he could afford into it. Given how often he helped the rest of them out with expenses, Anders didn’t know how the man managed to have anything left to himself.

Carver had his brother’s ear as they left the Chantry, the two of them leading the way, careful to make sure there were no witnesses to see them leaving the site of the slaughter. Anders didn’t pay too much attention until several streets over, when Carver’s voice began to rise in agitation.

“ - being so bloody stubborn!” Carver said. “Whatever it is, it can’t be any worse than what we’ve already done tonight, can it? I’ll give you my share, you bleeding git!”

“What’s this now?” Isabela asked. The inquiry earned a glare from Leo.

“Nothing,” the mage growled, which displeased Carver.

“It’s not nothing!” Carver said. “I have another job for us, with our old employer, Meeran. We could swing by and speak to him on the way to take Merrill home, but he’s being a tit.”

“That’s the pot calling the kettle,” Anders muttered.

“It’s one job, and it’s good coin,” Carver said. Anders could almost picture him stomping his foot. He gestured to the way they had come. “We just killed people in a Chantry. _Again_! I don’t know what you have to be squeamish about here, brother!”

“I’m in,” Isabela said, and earned both brothers’ attention. She smiled. “Sounds like fun. Let’s do it.”

“Isabela,” Leo frowned.

“Can you give a single reason not to?” she asked. “We’re out anyway. The night is far from over.”

Carver looked surprised, then, slowly, victorious.

 


	20. A Business Proposition

Leopold Hawke had failed to anticipate how uncomfortable it would be to return the Red Iron.

The tenant house in which Meeran’s office was located appeared unchanged. Hawke had actively taken pains to avoid it since leaving the mercenaries’ employ, but he found the same sagging shutters and stained walls, the same tired stench of urine and vomit that he remembered.

Even the guards stationed oh-so-casually out front seemed the same, though truthfully, to Hawke, who in his year with the Red Iron had never bothered to get to know a single soul, they were all interchangeable. Shiftless brutes sharing cigarettes and raunchy stories, hugging the shadows and itching for action. Most of them were Carver’s age or younger, and like Carver they shared that directionless hunger for greatness, for adventure, for recognition, and for riches. Meeran saw this and was quick to take advantage, acting swiftly, and with all a predator’s sharpness and cunning.

It had been one bright spot since their arrival in Kirkwall, the day Hawke cut ties with the Red Iron. Getting Carver away from Meeran was the one thing he’d been sure he’d done right.

And now they were back.

Carver fit in too well here. The men hailed him with enthusiasm, greeted him by name. He swaggered, confident, popular. Hawke wished he had the ability to explain to him why the price was so high.

“No, Meeran’s out tonight,” one of the guards said, in response to Carver’s query. Hawke felt something in his shoulders loosen, even as his brother’s expression grew carefully blank. The fellow looked past Carver, and his eye fell on Hawke on its way to take in Isabela’s generous curves. He did a double take. “Your brother’s here? Why didn’t you mention it?”

“Why should that matter?” Carver asked.

The guard had already turned around. “Al!” he called. “Hey, Al – Hawke’s here! Yeah! Get that – yeah, get that letter Meeran was saving for him. The job – yeah, that’s – yeah – “

Several of the younger lads had gone scampering off into the building. The guard looked back at Hawke and drew himself up straighter. He crossed his arms, flexed, tried to make himself look bigger in comparison with Hawke.

Hawke’s patience was at its limit. He said, “I haven’t got all night,” and the guard immediately deflated.

“Ass,” Carver muttered. “Didn’t you hear? He just said – “

“Tell Meeran I refuse to play his power games,” Hawke said. “If there’s a job, Meeran can have one of the boys bring the letter to my uncle’s place and I’ll take it on a provisional basis – _if_ I happen to have the time to get to it. If there isn’t a job, tell him to stop trying to get to me through my brother.”

He didn’t wait for an answer. The guard’s mouth opened and closed as he reached, and failed to find an answer, and Hawke turned away.

He was almost at the end of the street by the time his brother caught up with him.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Carver demanded. “You agreed – !”

“I agreed to talk to Meeran,” Hawke snapped, stopping, rounding on his sibling. Carver, shorter and stockier than his brother, had puffed himself up, gotten into Hawke’s personal space. His face was red. Hawke refused to back down. He bent his head, looming over him. “I didn’t agree to play games with him. Meeran wants to put me in my place. I’m not having it.”

“Bullshit!” Carver said. “You didn’t even try!”

“I paid my debt to the Red Iron,” Hawke said. “I don’t owe Meeran shit. If he wants to hire me - !”

“How is he supposed to hire you if you won’t even - ?”

“Have you even thought about - ?”

“You always - !”

“Hawke, Carver,” Merrill’s little voice interrupted their spat, drawing attention from both men mid-sentence. Carver was red and furious. Hawke’s amber-eyed glare was fierce. She seemed to notice neither. “Can’t you be silly another time?”

“ _Silly_?” Hawke repeated.

“We aren’t - !” Carver began.

She waved them both away. “I’m sure you’re both very big and manly and tough,” she said. “But it’s getting late and I’m not quite sure how to get back to the alienage from here. Do you suppose one of you could walk me home?”

“I will!” Carver said, before Hawke had the chance to answer. He elbowed past his brother, and Hawke grunted, glaring as Carver settled himself at Merrill’s side. Carver wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“Oh, good,” Anders said, speaking up. “You can drop Isabela off on your way.”

“Oh, we can, can we?” Carver demanded.

“It’s on the way,” Anders said again. “And Hawke can walk me back to Darktown. Everyone gets home safe.”

“We have to have buddies to go home?” Isabela asked.

“Hawke’s rules,” Merrill said. “Kirkwall is very dangerous after dark. And sometimes some of us get lost.”

“Sometimes _you_ get lost,” Anders corrected.

“Well, yes,” she agreed. “Shall we get going then?”

“But I don’t _need_ to be walked home,” Isabela protested, even as she followed Carver and Merrill down the darkened Lowtown streets. Hawke watched them go, tense, _boiling_ , in fact. He didn’t realize he had his hands clenched until Anders touched his arm, and Anders was swept into the furious fire of his gaze when he turned to look at him. It took effort to look away, to keep from subjecting the other mage to his ire. Hawke began to walk, without a word, and Anders followed. His long legs were able to keep up with ease.

They were silent as they walked. Hawke didn’t trust himself to speak, and Anders – Hawke wasn’t sure he wanted to know what was running through Anders’s mind. He was certain he hadn’t made a good impression on the healer, because Hawke never made a good impression on anyone. No one saw the things that were so obvious to Hawke, and so Hawke was rude, and Hawke was mean, and Hawke was wrong.

He hated the way Carver looked at him. He hated the way he felt his little brother drawing further and further away from him. The days they had spent working their father’s land together were so far in the past as to seem to belong to another life. They had been happy then, if they didn’t always get along. Carver had at least been willing to listen to him, to consider his advice.

Hawke knew his brother was a young man now. He knew he had his own mistakes to make, his own choices to consider, his own path to forge. But his judgement was still that of a boy, and they weren’t in Lothering anymore. His choices were no longer as simple as deciding which girl to take to the harvest dance or whether or not to attempt to patch the roof with an hour’s sunlight left. Kirkwall was a hungry beast, ready to feed on its unwary citizens and Carver – Carver didn’t see it.

They had already lost Bethany. Hawke had failed her. He could still hear her spine crack in his dreams.

If something happened to Carver…

They had reached Anders door. Hawke didn’t even remember entering the sewers. He stared at the wide sliding doors of the clinic, at the lanterns, now left cold and dark, and he cursed himself for his inattention. Anders spoke, and he didn’t even hear his words. He shifted, startled, when the healer put a hand on his arm.

“I said, do you want to come in?” Anders repeated.

“Come in?”

“Come on,” he said, pushing open the doors. “I’ll make you some tea.”

Hawke followed him, because he didn’t want to go home to Gamlen’s. He didn’t want to deal with his mother’s questions and his uncle’s advice and Carver’s arguments, or, worse, his sullen silence. Hawke was _tired_. His shoulders were stiff and sore, and a headache had begun behind his eyes, and the clinic was dark, and quiet, and the herbal smell reminded him of Ferelden.

He followed the other mage back, past the common area of the clinic to the little space dedicated to Anders’s living space, and he took a seat on a stool near what passed for the kitchen. He watched Anders rouse the fire, and light a lamp. It cast the healer in strange shadows, half of his face in darkness, the other in light. His hair had slipped into his face. It was striking, how normal he looked, how the spirit dwelling beneath the surface slept, concealed so well.

“I don’t know how to reach him,” Hawke heard himself say, and he wasn’t sure why he was telling Anders, of all people, only that he had to say _something_ , had to get the thought out of his mind, and it would be nice, maybe, to have someone listen, to not feel as if he were doing it all alone.

“You’re wasting your energy on him,” Anders said. “Your brother’s a prick. He’s not going to learn until he falls on his face a few more times.” He turned away from the flames, and returned to Hawke.

“I don’t want him to fall on his face,” Hawke frowned. “I want – he’s so talented. He could be so much more than this.”

“So could you,” Anders said. And he bent his head over Hawke, and leaned in as if to kiss him.

Hawke was so startled that it almost happened. He could feel the warmth of the other mage’s breath. A strand of long honey colored hair brushed his face, Anders’s hand against his cheek. He pulled back, and extended a hand, his brows furrowing in confusion.

“What are you doing?”

It was Anders’s turn to frown, to look confused. He said, “You said you wanted to come in.”

“For tea,” Hawke said, and Anders stared at him, silent, for a long moment.

“Oh,” he said at last. He finally straightened. “Right. Tea. Where is my kettle?”

“Anders…”

“No, my mistake. I thought – never mind. Here it is.”

Hawke swallowed, stunned out of his thoughts, and his anger, and the feeling of being overwhelmed. “I’m…sorry,” he said. “I misunderstood the invitation.” He could still smell the elfroot on the man’s clothes. Anders, pulling his tea tin down from a cabinet, nearly dropped it. He didn’t look at Hawke as he fumbled the little canister, and set it on the counter, and fiddled with the lid.

“Surely you’ve – thought about it before,” Anders said.

“No,” Hawke answered, honestly. Anders’s sharp shoulders stiffened, then dropped. His head lowered a little.

He said, “Oh,” and a deep, painfully uncomfortable silence followed. The next time he spoke, he tried, without success, to make his voice light. “I think I have some chamomile left, if you don’t like elfroot.”

Hawke said, “Don’t be offended. I can’t handle that tonight, too.” He watched Anders’s long fingers toy with the lid of his tea canister, not opening it. His head was bowed, his expression hidden by the veil of his hair. Hawke’s voice, as it so often did, had come out harder than he wanted. He cleared his throat, and he tried again “That’s not something I – I can’t think about those kinds of matters. Not right now. My family has to be my priority. It’s nothing personal.”

Anders thumbed the latch on the canister, shifted a little, glanced at Hawke.

“So,” Anders said. “If things were more settled here, with your family and everything - ?”

“Maybe,” Hawke said. “I don’t know.”

“That’s fair,” Anders said. “Maybe some other time, then.”

“Maybe,” Hawke repeated.

“Right, then. Ahh, tea – did you decide what you wanted? I’m afraid I’m out of sugar – it’s so expensive lately.” He opened the lid. He began pulling out several tight little bundles of tea. “You know, catnip – it sounds crazy, but catnip tea might settle your nerves a bit…”

Hawke rose. “Actually,” he said, “I think I’d better go.”

“Oh,” Anders turned back to him at last, his hands still full of teas, his sharp shoulders dropping. “Are you sure?”

“I think it’s for the best right now.”

“Right,” Anders said. “Probably, yeah.” He followed Hawke to the door, his hands still full, his expression worried and lonesome and a little bleak.

Hawke felt compelled to stop at the door, and an uncomfortable moment of silence passed between them.

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate the offer,” he told him. “It’s – been a long time for me.”

“For me, too,” Anders said.

“If things change – I’ll let you know. All right?”

“Yeah,” he said. He smiled. “That sounds good.”

“Right. I – I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

Hawke let himself out. He didn’t wait to see Anders return to the silence and solitude of his clinic.

The streets were quiet, and they were deserted, and the hour had passed _late_ and was beginning to venture into the territory of _early_. Pink was beginning to touch the sky by the time he returned to Gamlen’s flat. Carver wasn’t there.

But a letter from Meeran was.

\--

After Carver saw Merrill and Isabela back to what passed for their respective homes, he returned to the Red Iron, and the boys took him drinking. Jame and Sev thought it was great he’d managed to get Leo even thinking about coming back, even if the night hadn’t exactly gone down as well as he might have hoped. With a pint of ale in hand and a pretty girl in his lap, Carver began to cheer up fairly quickly. They even spotted him some gold when he took a large loss at cards.

“You can pay us back later,” Sev said. “Or, hey, we have a job tonight. Want to lend a hand? Take about a hundred off your dept. Easy street.”

Carver hadn’t quiet drunk enough yet not to have second thoughts. “Meeran doesn’t want me working for the Red Iron without my brother.”

“Meeran doesn’t have to know,” Jame told him. “Not to mention, you two are practically back as it is.”

“You’re not worried about your brother finding out, are you?” Sev asked.

No, Carver decided, he damn well wasn’t. He downed his drink and kissed his girl, and, grinning like a maniac, he told them he was ready.

He wouldn’t remember much of the night, later. It seemed like it was a hit on a rival gang, and it didn’t go well, but he and Sev and Jame made it away, and drank until dawn, and when he woke up he was in the alley behind the Rose, alone, and he had a split lip and a black eye and not a coin to his name.

When he stumbled into the Hanged Man, it gave him some measure of satisfaction to watch his brother’s expression change from closed amusement at something Varric had said to a dark and dangerous thundercloud. Leo rose as Carver stumbled to the table, his big shoulders tight and hunched, his jaw set. Carver gave him a rude gesture as he helped himself to a chair.

“Buy me breakfast,” he said. “And, Maker’s sake, don’t _nag_ me, all right? I have a headache.”

“Hawke,” Aveline warned, and Varric fished out his coin purse.

“I got this one, all right?” he asked, as he waved a waitress over. “Half a dozen eggs for the tough guy, here. Kid thinks he’s proving something.”

“I’m not a kid,” Carver said. “And I want coffee.”

“And a coffee,” Varric allowed.

“ _What am I supposed to do about him_?” Leo hissed to Aveline, as he let her coax him back into his seat.

“ _You’ll only make it worse_ ,” she told him, low, and Carver overheard, anyway. Carver’s entire body ached, but he found his mood remarkably improved. When his food arrived, he tucked in with gusto.

“Busy night, Junior?” Varric asked, and Carver shrugged.

“Productive,” he said, around a mouthful of eggs. He drank down coffee in great, scalding gulps, and tried to overhear what his brother and Aveline were talking about. They had their heads together, and a parchment in front of them.

Anders came slinking in some time during Carver’s second cup. Furtive, nervous, almost? When he slipped into the vacant chair beside Leo, he seemed stiff and unsure. Leo barely acknowledged him, but waved over the waitress to place an order for the other mage’s breakfast, and barely paused in his discussion with Aveline.

“ – the patrols might avoid that area,” Carver briefly caught the tail end of something the guardswoman said. “But even an hour is pushing it. Are you sure - ?”

Another job, then, and one his brother evidently wasn’t planning to include him in. Carver reached across the table and plucked the letter from Leo’s hands while he was distracted by Aveline. He read it quickly, lest it be taken away.

The handwriting was familiar, the contents short and to the point.

_Hawke,_

_A dwarf named Anso contacted the Red Iron looking for contract work. Wish I could take him up on it, but we've pressing business, so I recommended you. The dwarf pays well, so don't be a fool and miss out. Look for Anso in the Lowtown Bazaar at night if you're interested._

_Meeran_

When he looked up, Leo’s eyes were on him. Carver felt a strange mixture of triumph and sour bitterness. He tossed the letter aside and took his time, buttering a piece of toast, ignoring the silence that spread around the table.

“Were you going to tell me about this?” he asked at last, as Anders reached for the letter and eyed it in curiosity.

Leo’s voice was surprisingly mild. He said, “It’s your job. I’m just along for the ride.”

“I doubt that.”

“It has to happen tonight,” Leo said. “Will you be up for it?”

“What makes you think I wouldn’t be?”

Leo’s lips compressed into a thin line. His eyes were hard, displeased. Carver snorted, shoveled eggs onto his toast, and took a huge bite.

“Have your pet abomination heal me, then,” he said around the mouthful. “I don’t bloody care.”

“No, I’ll take care of you myself.”

“I don’t want - !” Carver began, but it was too late. Leo rose from his chair only enough to reach him across the table. His grasp was firm on his wrist. The shock of Leo’s shitty healing spell was like taking a bucket of ice water to the face.

Once, when they were young, Carver fell through a frozen lake in the middle of winter. His brother’s healing spells always reminded him of that. It was strange to think now that it had been Leo who dove in after him, Leo who pulled him, blue and shivering, back to the shore.

“Bloody bastard,” Carver snarled, when it was over. He yanked his hand away. Leo returned to his seat.

 

 

 

 

 


	21. The Lyrium Smuggler

“You’re hard on him,” Aveline said, and Hawke almost chuckled.

“Our father was hard on both of us,” he said. “Carver should be thankful I give him as much slack as I do.”

“Your brother should be grateful for a lot of things,” she said, and left it at that. Hawke was unsure how to answer her, and so he let the statement rest as well, and a moment of silence passed between them.

Before Hawke had come to Kirkwall, he would not have said he was a man of many friends, and yet lately it seemed he had them aplenty. It was strange to think Aveline should be his oldest friendship, when they had only known one another for a little more than a year, but the lads in Lothering had never seen him as one of them, and things had been even worse, socially, after he had left to find his fortune.

Even as a child Hawke had been looked to as an example, a future leader of the community. He had to be exemplary, Malcolm said, so that suspicion of his powers might never fall on his shoulders. He couldn’t afford a neighbor’s petty whim bringing the templars to their doorstep.

So Hawke helped raise barns and mend fences. He rescued lost sheep and hauled in loads of hay, worked his hands bloody from the moment the sun rose to the moment it set, and if he didn’t attend Chantry service regularly, at least he made it on the important holidays. He was stoic, serious, hardworking – the perfect farmer’s son – and at night, long after he had passed the point of exhaustion, he practiced his magic, so his control would never waver.

What Hawke _didn’t_ do was pal around with the other boys, or get into youthful mischief. He didn’t worry the livestock or pelt his neighbors with snowballs, or sneak away from his chores to go fishing. He didn’t steal candies from the general store and he didn’t smoke elfroot in the cornfields. His one brief period of rebellion came in the summer of his fifteenth year, when the size of his shoulders swelled along with his youthful passions and earned him quite a bit of flattering and utterly unexpected attention from his peers. It didn’t last long – not after a particularly humiliating incident in his family’s barn. Somehow it got around the neighborhood, how perfect Leo Hawke had been caught on his knees with the cobbler’s boy, and if the neighbors proved willing enough to pat his back and laugh it off, it didn’t change the feeling that he had deeply disappointed his father.

So, for Hawke it was a new thing, sitting around a fire with a mug in his hand, ale warm in his belly and friends at his side. It was new to have someone else worry for him, protect him, watch his back. He didn’t always handle it gracefully, and Aveline had borne the brunt of his painful adjustment to this new experience. Had borne it, and stuck by him anyway. Aveline, then Varric – and maybe, one day, the others too. Anders, and Merrill, and Isabela. It seemed less strange with each day that passed.

“I’ll buy your next round,” Aveline offered, and Hawke shook his head.

“I want to keep my head clear for tonight,” he explained, and she nodded, and took a loaf of bread from the able as she settled back in her chair. Hawke was silent for as long as he could take it. Finally, he said, “They’ve been back there a long time.”

Aveline chuckled. “If your brother is half as stubborn as you are, it will be another few hours before Varric brings him around.”

Hawke glanced over his shoulder, up the stairs that led to the private rooms the Hanged Man let. Varric had taken Carver up there, under the guise of getting him the name of a good armorcraftsman. In reality, he was trying to soothe the young warrior’s bruised ego, calm him down before they set out for the job tonight. An extra-prickly Carver could make things awkward while they were talking to the contact. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Maybe I should go up there,” Hawke said.

“Maybe you shouldn’t.”

He grimaced. “You two planned this, didn’t you? He takes Carver, you take me?”

“I’ve never liked babysitting,” she said. “For the record, I did tell him you would see through it.”

“Damn dwarf.”

Aveline snorted, and tossed a chunk of bread at his face. Her aim was good, and it bounced masterfully off his nose. She said, “It wouldn’t be necessary if you wouldn’t antagonize him at every turn.”

“A fluffy bunny could antagonize Carver.”

“They’re wicked things, bunnies.”

“Har har. Are you sure you can’t come tonight?”

“And take a job out from under Carver? Then we really would have a war on our hands. Fortunately for me, I have to work. Fortunately for you, too. The guards won’t bother you – you’re welcome. I traded three shifts to work this out.”

“I’ll owe you one.”

“If the pay is half as good as you think it is, I’ll let you buy me a drink.”

Hawke settled back in his chair. He didn’t feel good about this job, but now that he had agreed to it, there seemed no way out of it. “The thing about doing a job Meeran recommended,” Hawke said, “Is it will definitely pay well.”

“But - ?”

“But there’s a very good chance I’m not going to like what I have to do.”

Aveline was quiet for a moment, watching him. Finally she said, “You’re a good man, Hawke. Don’t let anyone tell you different.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said dryly.

Aveline tore off a piece of bread and chewed silently for a moment, thoughtful. “So,” she said, “You and Carver, Varric, and - ?”

“I asked Anders,” he said. “Better to have him where I can keep an eye on him.”

“That Isabela woman wanted to take Merrill out drinking.”

“I heard.”

“That won’t end well.”

“What ever does?”

Aveline hummed. She asked, “Do I need to stop by and check in on your mother?” and Hawke shook his head.

“I’m leaving the dog again. He hates being cooped up, but it’s the best solution I can think of until I have the funds for some proper bribes.”

“Do you still think Carver is dipping into the expedition fund?”

He didn’t answer at first. Then he realized that, in itself, was an answer. He said, “I can’t prove anything. It could easily be Gamlen.” She let it drop.

It was just the two of them for the moment. Anders had left to open his clinic, Merrill had gone to the market to shop, and Isabela was sleeping off what had, evidently, become a wild night after returning to the Hanged Man. Hawke glanced over his shoulder again, wondering how things were going to with Carver and Varric.

“I’m free now, if you like,” Aveline said. Her smile was patient as Hawke jerked his gaze back to her. “You’re antsy,” she said. “Best to get your mind off it. If you have any work that could be finished up in an afternoon, I’m willing to lend a hand.”

“I’m not antsy,” Hawke frowned.

Aveline raised a brow. He tried it again with a less harsh tone.

“I’m not antsy.”

“What’s the worst thing he could ask you to do?”

“I’m not sure I want to answer that.”

“I can’t stand that brooding face,” she said, and rose. “Come on, then.”

“I’m not brooding,” he mumbled, as he followed.

Hawke didn’t exactly feel as if he was much use, trailing Aveline down the city streets. Fortunately, they stuck to fetch-and-retrieval jobs, small things he had been putting off that required neither skill nor concentration. Aveline did most of the talking. Through it all, Hawke found himself beset by a growing feeling of unease.

The upcoming job was another mistake, and one he couldn’t see his way out of. Carver had his mind set on this Meeran nonsense. Hawke had buckled in a moment of weakness and now –

Now it felt as if he would lose his brother, whatever he did.

The sun was setting when Hawke and Aveline parted ways, and Hawke wished he could appreciate the weight and clink of the coins that now lined his pocket. When he returned to the Hanged Man, he found his brother losing rather badly at cards and growing increasingly irate with Varric’s unsolicited advice.

Anders was at the dwarf’s table, and he smiled when he saw Hawke approach. “Beat you here,” he said. “And here I was worried I would be the late one.”

“Good luck prying Junior off the table,” Varric said. “He’s four down.”

“Four - ?”

“Hundred.”

Red creeped up Carver’s neck. “I can win it back!” he said. “Another hour.”

“You said that two hours ago,” Varric said.

Hawke stared at his brother. Even if he took the expedition savings into account, there was no way he would be able to scrape together enough gold to cover one hundred, much less four. He was already stalking toward the table when Carver gave a cheer, and pulled the coins to himself.

“You see?” he asked. “I told you I had this.”

“Settle your debt, then,” Hawke growled. “Or would you rather skip this job you wanted so badly?”

Carver ignored him. Hawke watched with something like pain as the majority of his brother’s winnings went to pay back the others. In the end he only pocketed about twenty gold pieces – gold that Hawke was sure never to see again, once it vanished into his brother’s pocket.

“You worry too much, you old man,” Carver told him, and bumped his shoulder as he passed out into the night.

The night was unusually chill, and though it was still early evening, the streets seemed unnaturally deserted. It didn’t improve Hawke’s mood.

They found the contact exactly where they had been told to look – a nervous, squirrely-looking dwarf not far from the Hanged Man, who was making a rather poor attempt to hide himself around the shadows of a closed-up cart. He leapt nearly a foot off the ground when they approached, and clutched at his heart, and for a moment Hawke thought there would be no job after all.

“Sweet mother of Partha!” the dwarf cursed, one trembling hand extended, his breath heavy as he tried to catch it. “You can’t just run up on someone like that!”

Hawke stopped, he waited, watching the way the man’s shoulders heaved and the way his beard trembled. The flashy dwarven tunic he wore would attract all the wrong kinds of attention in this part of town, at this time of night. He would be lucky if he made it to dawn with his boots.

He squinted at Hawke and the others, and tried to smile, and, still breathing heavily, he wiped sweat from his brow and asked, “Are you…the one that mercenary told me about? The one looking for work?”

Hawke pursed his lips. He looked slowly to Carver, as if to ask _really?_ but his brother would not meet his eyes. “Maker’s balls,” he heard Varric mutter. “This clown is going to get us killed.”

“Just tell me what you want,” Hawke said, and had to endure the wait while the dwarf jumped and trembled and sweated all over again.

“Of course!” the dwarf said. “Listen to me, babbling like a lyrium smuggler! Which I’m not.” He laughed. None of the rest of them joined him. Finally, he cleared his throat. “My apologies, human. I haven’t been on the surface very long. I keep thinking I’ll fall up into the sky any minute!”

From somewhere behind Hawke, Varric laughed. “Bartrand used to be like that,” he said. “Got jumpy every time he stepped outside.”

“I’d pay to see that,” Carver grinned. His gaze skittered quickly away from Hawke’s when they met.

“I digress!” the dwarf said. “I do need some help – rather badly, in fact. Some product has been…misplaced. The men who were supposed to deliver it decided not to. If you retrieve my property, I could reward you handsomely…?”

“Just what did the men steal?” Hawke asked, and Anso wiped his face again.

“Did – did I say steal? I don’t know if I would go that far. They seemed like perfectly reasonable smugglers. They smiled and everything!” Hawke wasn’t about to smile. After a moment, the dwarf nervously continued. “The goods _are_ valuable, however. And illegal. And my client wants them very, very badly! You know how these templars can be!”

Hawke felt a wave of cold in his belly. Somewhere behind him, Anders stiffened. Even Varric gave a low whistle. Carver wouldn’t look at him.

Hawke made sure to speak very slowly and clearly. “You’re smuggling lyrium to the templars?”

“Of course he is,” he heard Carver mutter. “That’s just bloody great.”

Hawke rolled his shoulders, and bit down on a comment. It took every ounce of strength he had. Anso, under the thundercloud of his expression, immediately threw up his hands in defense.

“ _Shhh_! By the Paragons, not so _loudly_!” he said, and wiped his brow again. “My word! I’m not cut out for this. I should have taken that job sweeping stables like Mother insisted.”

Hawke’s jaw felt tight. He could feel his pulse behind his eyes. He counted to ten before he tried to speak.

“Make it worth my time,” he agreed, bitterly. “I’ll help you.”

“Oh, I will!” Anso promised. “Or, I’ll try to!”

“Practically a guarantee,” Carver said. He might have been trying to sound cheerful. Hawke carefully avoided looking at him. He didn’t trust what he might say.

“The gentlemen conduct their business at night in a little hovel within the alienage,” Anso said. “If you have to kill them, then O guess it can’t be avoided. But I’m sure they’ll be reasonable.”

With the way Hawke was feeling, he rather hoped they _weren’t_.

They were almost to the alienage before Carver spoke. “You see, it’s not so bad. Guarantee we’re getting paid more for a couple smugglers than we did hacking at people in the Chantry.”

“Maybe you’d better cool it,” Anders suggested.

Hawke ignored them both as best he could. He stopped at the top of the stairs leading into the alienage. The place was deserted, eerily so. He found himself grateful Merrill was under Isabela’s wing tonight. The entire place had a still, foreboding air to it.

“It’s a little quiet here tonight,” Varric said, echoing his thoughts. “Too quiet.”

“You’re both being silly,” Carver said. “We’ve got this one in the bag.”

Hawke made himself move forward – down the stairs, into the square. A cold wayward breeze brought with it the smell of the unusual spices the elves liked to cook with, along with the rotting fish stink from the docks. He crossed the square with long, determined strides, and when he found the building Anso had indicated, the door was unlocked.

“Hawke…” Varric warned.

“I know,” he said. He reached for his staff, and opened himself to the Fade. Ice ghosted across the doorknob as he turned it.

The house appeared empty.

Hawke eased forward slowly, and he did not let go of his connection to the Fade. It was only a small one; he could barely hear the whispers of the demons on the other side. Out of his peripherals, he saw Varric move to check for traps. Beside him, Carver eased his sword in its scabbard.

The first room Hawke checked was empty.

His feelings of unease grew worse.

It was almost a relief to open the next door and find armed guards lying in wait. A relief to embrace the Fade fully, to let the power trickle through to suffice his being, fire bursting from his fingertips to catch a pair of smugglers just rising from their card table.

There were not enough of them, part of Hawke’s mind told him, as, ignored somewhere beyond sight, demons offered him riches, and glory, and immortality. They were bare whispers, and not enough to concern himself with. What did concern him was this small retinue of poorly-armed smugglers, who died before the fight was even properly started.

When it was over, he almost missed the chest that stood waiting. Anzo’s goods. Hawke strode across the floor, his bootsteps ringing heavy, leaving bloody prints in his wake, and he knelt, and opened the chest, and found it empty.

He stared a moment, then reached inside, felt for a hidden compartment. Nothing.

Hawke kicked it as he rose, and the chest, cheaply made as it was, hit the opposite wall splintered with a great, loud _crack_.

“Well,” Anders said. “So much for that.”

“I guess we have no choice but to go back to Anso and tell him,” Hawke said. His voice was tight and bitter in his own ears. He didn’t like this. Why the guards, and why so few of them? Why the empty chest? He would suspect Meeran was trying to get him killed, except Meeran would have known better what kind of fight to send. _What was he missing?_

“Don’t look at me!” Carver said, hunched, defensive. “It’s not my fault!”

“I’m not - !” Hawke shook his head, and brushed passed. Their shoulders bumped on the way.

He heard Carver ask, “Think we’ll still get paid?” as he opened the door.

Outside, the night was still cold and clear. They had been in there less than even half an hour, and not even the stars had changed. But something else had.

A ring of soldiers stood outside – armed, heavily armored, and waiting.

Hawke stopped short, just outside the door. It felt as if the feeling of impending doom he had been dreading all day had finally come to call. He counted them; over a dozen. _Shit._

Surprise had caught him, and he lost whatever chance he had to warn the others. Carver and Anders and Varric had already followed him out into the open, into the trap. Hawke squared his shoulders, and tried to make himself bigger – tried to present himself as a target more threatening than the other three combined.

“That’s not the elf!” a woman’s voice spat. “Who _is_ that?”

“It doesn’t matter!” said another. “We were told to kill whoever enters the house!”

 

 


	22. Fenris

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one and the next are rather heavy on the in-game dialogue. I'm sorry. Leo has to ask all the questions.

A sword slashed him across the face, and would have left a nasty scar, if not outright taken his nose, had Anders’s healing magic not settled over Hawke immediately, almost before he even knew he had been wounded. The spell  was warm, like a thick blanket on a frozen night, and it rested there against his shoulders for only a moment, but it was enough to rally him.

Hawke buried the butt of his staff in the dirt, and he picked himself up painfully from the ground. His blood felt hot and thick on his face. He got his staff up in time to block the next sword fall, and he twisted. His hand wrenched moisture from the cool night air, and the wall of ice slid into place, heavy and hard, and caught two soldiers in it. The spell had been violently and messily thrown together, and for a moment he felt his ears ringing. He staggered.

“Are you all right?” he heard Carver before he saw him, his brother shoving forward, shoveling up next to him, his blade pushing back a rallying soldier. “Damn it! You’re all right, right?”

“Fine,” Hawke managed, a single word, but enough to put relief in his brother’s eyes.

“Running low on bolts!” Varric warned, slamming another home, cocking Bianca, aiming her again.

“We’ve got this!” Carver insisted. “Tear these bastards down!”

Hawke raised his staff again, and fire poured from the sky in great, generous heaps. Anders was a burning blue beacon, and the flamed licked and danced and did not harm him, but the trio of soldiers around him fell back, and one went up with a scream.

With his brother’s health accounted for, Carver charged forward. He barreled into another soldier, and his soft tunic tore against the man’s heavy armor. It didn’t matter. Carver was the better swordsman, a fact which became apparent with bloody finality. He smiled as he fought.

Hawke called for more power, opened himself to more of the Fade, and the ground rippled and bucked under the soldiers’ feet. Above them, elven faces appeared in windows, then quickly ducked away. Curtains were drawn. Doors were locked. Hawke pulled his arm across his forehead, and it came away wet with sweat and blood. He lifted his staff again.

They didn’t speak when it was over. Anders momentarily lost his footing when he released Justice, and Hawke caught him, gave his shoulder a warm squeeze. He tried to thank him, to tell him he’d done well, but he was too tired to form words. Anders smiled at him anyway. Carver helped Varric rifle corpses for belongings, and collect crossbow bolts. Hawke released Anders when he was sure the other mage could stand on his own.

“Anyone need healing?” Anders offered, despite his own obvious fatigue.

“You’ve done enough, Blondie,” Varric promised.

Hawke couldn’t help but to lift fingers toward his face, where he should have been sporting a bloody ruin. Anders caught him, and smiled again.

“I couldn’t spoil that profile,” the blond shrugged. Hawke found himself grinning back.

“Everyone keep an eye out,” Hawke reminded them, as they moved toward the stairs to exit the alienage. The bodies would have to remain where they lay; with their armor, they were too heavy to drag away, and there could still be more traps in the area. Anso would have some questions to answer for certain. Hawke was tired, and he was aching, but his mood felt marginally better than it had started out.

Then an unfamiliar voice brought his attention to the stairs.

“I don’t know who you are, friend, but you’ve made a serious mistake coming here.” The man was another soldier, as heavily armored as the others had been, but wearing a badge of command as well. His eyes were small and cruel, his lip curling in disdain, even as Hawke moved to put himself in front of the others, as he levelled his staff at him. Hawke made sure his message was clear: _it’s me – I’m the one you need to go through._

“Lieutenant!” the man called, and his voice was sharp, a voice used to giving command. His eyes blazed with an anger Hawke could not understand, an almost desperate rage that had nothing and everything to do with the dead men they had left in the square. Hawke rolled his shoulders, and felt every bit of his weariness even as he reached for the Fade once more. Demons shrieked their familiar promises in the back of his mind. He barely heard them. “I want everyone in the clearing! _Now!”_

“C – captain…” the voice was rough, weak. Blood dribbled slowly to the cobblestones as a soldier staggered forward. It looked almost black as it spilled from his lips. He hit his knees. He fell.

“Your men are dead,” a new voice announced, low and deep, raising the hairs on Hawke’s arms. “And your trap has failed.”

The elf came down the stairs on silent steps, heedless of the blood. His arched, bare feet left red stains in their wake, like bloody kisses against the stone. His shoulders were straight and proud, chin lifted, eyes cold.

A smile played at one corner of the perfect bow of his mouth. “I suggest running back to your master while you can,” he said.

He passed the soldier as if he were nothing – and he was, wasn’t he? Judging by the state of the unfortunate lieutenant. The elf’s right arm was crimson up to his elbow. He stopped, mere feet away from Hawke, and their eyes met, and Hawke felt something like an electric shock.

The soldier moved forward. Hawke was aware of it, distantly, his attention riveted to this gore-splattered elf, even as the man reached forward for a slender shoulder.

“You’re going nowhere, _slave_!” he said, and Hawke saw it, the fury that passed in the elf’s green eyes. The elf turned away, and the moment was over, whatever strange spell that had held Hawke riveted broken, so he could suddenly feel his hands again, his fingers and his feet. He could smell the chill night air, and the stink of blood, like he had never smelled them before, punctuated by the sharp unmistakable ozone of lyrium.

The elf flashed blue, the strange markings on his skin bright as lightning in a midnight sky, and he plunged his arm deep into the soldier’s chest and the soldier could only grunt and look surprised.

The elf’s voice was softly full of fury as he held the other man’s eyes. He said, “I am _not_ a slave,” and he released him, and the man slid from his arm and fell, lifeless, to the ground. A breeze picked up the sharp stench of death.

The elf stared at the body for a long silent moment. Tension was drawn, tight, across his slender shoulders. He held the man’s heart in his hand. It was still pumping. With a sneer, he tossed it down, and spat on it. He examined his hands as if aware for the first time of the mess that covered them, and turned back to Hawke.

“I apologize,” he said. Their eyes met. The elf looked away before the world could fall away again. He spoke, instead, to Hawke’s left shoulder. “When I asked Anso to provide a distraction for the hunters, I had no idea they’d be so…numerous.”

It was only when he turned away that Hawke found his voice.

“I take it these men were looking for you?” he asked.

There was only grim acceptance in the way he answered, “Correct.” When he faced Hawke again, Hawke was more ready for it, for the startling beauty in his angular face, the shock of the lines that marked his slender body. “My name is Fenris,” the elf said. “These men were Imperial bounty hunters seeking to recover a magister’s lost property. Namely myself.”

There was a way he said it, _property_ , that was full of loathing. Hawke watched the effort it took him to meet his eyes again.

“They were trying to lure me into the open,” Fenris explained. “Crude as their methods were, I could not face them alone.” His lips quirked, briefly, one corner of his mouth lifting upwards, as if the rest had forgotten how to smile. There was something like amusement to the deep, rich roll of his voice when he continued. “Thankfully, Anso chose wisely.” Somehow he implied so much with so few words – gratitude, approval.

“Everything Anso said was a lie, then?” Hawke asked.

“Not everything,” Fenris held out a moment longer before dropping his eyes, and again he addressed himself instead to Hawke’s shoulders. “Your employer was simply not who you believed.”

“If you couldn’t fight them, why not just run?”

Fenris flexed his hand. The blood was wet and shiny and black in the moonlight. He said, “There comes a time when you must stop running, when you turn and face the tiger,” and Hawke felt something like – something like admiration stir. Still, he pressed him.

“That seems like a lot of effort to find one slave.”

Fenris didn’t flinch at the word. He said, simply, “It is.”

“Does this have something to do with those markings?” Hawke asked, and this time he thought the elf was definitely amused.

“Yes,” Fenris said, lifting his arms as if to display them. There was something too practiced about the movement. “I imagine I must look strange to you.”

 _Strange_ was not the word Hawke would have chosen, but Fenris’s amusement drained before he could get the words out. Hawke was finding himself slow in his answers, still caught by this strange _whatever it was_ he felt when their eyes met. Nervous energy, he might have thought, had he experience with such things.

“I did not receive these markings by choice,” Fenris let his arms drop again, his brow knit. His gaze flickered, tentatively, to Hawke’s, then away once more. “Even so, they have served me well. Without them, I would still be a slave.”

“If they were really trying to recapture you, then I’m glad I helped,” Hawke said, and it was honest, and he didn’t have to watch his tone at all. The elf’s lips quirked again. He dropped his head.

“I have met few in my travels who have sought anything more than personal gain,” he said, and hesitated, then lifted his head once more. “If I may ask: what was in the chest? The one they kept in the house?”

“It was empty.”

“I suppose it was too much to hope for,” Fenris murmured. “Even so, I had to know.”

“You were expecting something else?”

“I was, but I shouldn’t have. It was bait, nothing more.”

They fell silent for a moment, observing one another. If Fenris had looked past Hawke to his companions, Hawke hadn’t seen it. He looked at him, and he saw the intelligence it took to counter this trap with one of his own, and he thought of this unusual elf trying to fend off the soldiers alone. The men who had been waiting out on the streets of the alienage had been formidable. No doubt Fenris had skills of his own, beyond what Hawke had already seen, but –

He pictured him showing up at the Hanged Man, asking for assistance. Or perhaps coming home to find him waiting on Gamlen’s front steps, this strange, sharp elf who couldn’t seem to bear to meet his eyes for more than a moment, this former slave with the voice that pulled at something in Hawke – waiting because he had heard of the reputation Hawke had built, and he knew the tiger was waiting, and he didn’t want to face it alone.

Hawke said, “You didn’t need to lie to get my help,” and Fenris looked as startled for a moment before his expression settled into something flat, and cool, and painfully jaded.

“That remains to be seen,” he answered. He turned away again, and knelt to rifle the body. His hands were quick and they were practiced at stripping a corpse of valuables. He pocketed a ring and a small coin purse, and finally found what he was looking for, an insignia of some sort. It was dark, and Hawke couldn’t get a good look at it. Fenris crushed it as he rose. “It’s as I thought,” he said. “My former master accompanied them to the city.”

He looked at Hawke again, and Hawke could see the effort, the sheer force of will that it took to meet his eyes. Hawke had had people quail under his ire before, but this was different. This was not about him, but about a sheer force of habit. Or training.

At last those green eyes met his. “I know you have questions, but I must confront him before he flees. I will need your help.”

“It sounds like you intend to do more than just talk,” Hawke said, and he watched fury fill that lovely, angular face.

“Danarius wants to strip the flesh from my bones, and has sent so many hunters that I have lost count,” Fenris said. “Before that,” he spat, “He kept me on a _leash_ like a Qunari mage, a personal _pet_ to mock Qunari custom. So, _yes_. I intend to do more than _just talk_.”

The look on his face was murderous. Old pain, humiliation, anger.

Hawke found himself smiling.

“If it means fighting more slavers, I’ll help you,” he swore.

He watched the surprise flicker over the elf’s face, watched how he drew himself up, how he took a breath that shook. In a moment, the fury was gone, and he was, once again, the polite, well-spoken, blood splattered man he had been moments before.

He said, “I will find a way to repay you. I swear it,” and Hawke felt that he meant every word.

\--

Anders kept a watch on Leo, and not merely out of appreciation for the bulge of his biceps or the breadth of his shoulders. That last fight had been a close one – too close, he thought, with a vivid flash of memory, the silver arc of blade in the moonlight as if rushed towards Hawke’s face. Anders felt the ache of too much magic use deep in his bones. It coupled charmingly with his screamingly empty belly and the sheer exhaustion of too many sleepless nights.

Anders possessed a Warden’s darkspawn-tainted blood, and all of the things that came with it: nightmares, a raging appetite, and increased stamina. There was also the bright burning ember of Justice tethered to his soul to take into account. Anders could endure – indefinitely, he thought. Leopold Hawke, on the other hand, was only a man. An uncommonly stubborn, hard-headed bear of a man, but a man nonetheless, and Anders had seen mages push themselves too far under far less pressure than Leo was facing.

But – at least for the moment, Leo’s shoulders were square, and his step was sure. His head was up, his staff strapped to his back. If it weren’t for the blood drying on his face like a ghoulish mask, or the sweat that darkened his shirt under his arms, it would have been tempting to believe he was rested and fresh. If he was tired or hurting, he hid it well.

He was an incredible man.

“I managed to retrieve almost all of them,” Varric said, in response to a query from Hawke about crossbow bolts.

“We don’t know what we will be facing when we reach this Danarius,” Hawke said. “I don’t want to be taken unprepared.”

“Bianca and I are gold,” Varric promised. “But, Hawke, are you sure we should be trusting this elf?”

“I’m sure,” he said, and his tone left no room for argument.

“Did you see what he did with his hand?” Carver asked. “It was absolutely incredible!” He reached out, then clenched his hand, yanking it back in imitation of the elf’s actions, complete with sound effects and the miming of a beating heart. Anders felt warm when he heard Leo chuckle.

At least for the moment, the tension between the brothers seemed lifted, and he was glad – for Leo’s sake more than Carver’s. Even with blood congealing in his beard, Hawke had a wonderful smile. A shame it didn’t appear more often.

The streets were quiet, but not with the unnatural stillness that had haunted the earlier parts of their evening. Near the market, cold and empty and silent in the dead of night, they came across Aveline on her patrol. Though Leo was eager to get the job finished, he paused for long enough to give her the rundown on the events as they transpired.

“We had to leave the bodies,” he said. His voice was firm. “I don’t want innocent elves pinned for my murders.”

“They aren’t murders,” Carver scoffed. “They did try to kill us first, you know.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Aveline promised. “That is, if the elves haven’t already done it themselves. Signs of trouble have a way of mysteriously vanishing around the alienage. They don’t want the trouble either.”

Even still, Leo gave a grateful nod.

“Thank you,” he said. “I appreciate whatever you can do.”

After they parted, he walked even faster, his legs eating up the pavement in long, swift strides that Carver and, more particularly, Varric, had a time keeping up with. Perhaps he was concerned that the elf would act without them and they would miss out on the intended pay. It was the best solution Anders could come up with for such odd behavior. They passed through Hightown, and for once the street gangs that claimed the area as their own kept their distance.

They found Fenris in the shadows outside one of the older mansions. He was uneasy, pacing, and as they approached, he nearly drew his blade on them before he managed to realize who they were.

“No one has left the mansion,” he said, deep voice pitched low eyes flickering to a high, dark window, “But I’ve heard nothing within. Danarius may know we’re here. I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“I could stand to know a little more about this _Danarius_ ,” Leo said. He earned the elf’s attention.

“He is a magister of the Tevinter Imperium,” he explained.

“Oh, is that all?” Varric muttered. “Nothing to worry about, then.” Leo glanced at him, frowning, but the elf continued despite the interjection.

“There, he is a wealthy mage with great influence. Here, he is but a man who sweats like any other when death comes for him.”

The description earned an unpleasant smile from Leo, who said, darkly, “We shouldn’t wait any longer, then.”

Fenris smiled.


	23. Debt

 

Varric got the door to the servants’ entrance open with the skilled application of a set of lockpicks, then volunteered to stand guard outside while the rest of them went in to investigate.

“These types always have a backup plan,” he said, patting Bianca. “Anyone tries to leave, they’re going to get a sweet surprise from me and my girl. Aren’t they, Bianca?”

“The way you talk to that crossbow disturbs me,” Hawke said.

Varric ignored him. He said, “Anyway, place is probably full of spiders. No one’s lived here in years.”

“Thanks,” Hawke told him, flatly, and the dwarf smiled.

“Hey, have fun in there, Big Guy.”

Even with the locks taken care of, it took some effort to get the door open. Hawke had to force it, pushing his weight against it and holding it open as the others slipped past. Hawke was the last to enter, and narrowly avoided a face full of cobwebs in the process. Swearing and sputtering, he almost failed to notice the body that had been propped against the door, making it’s opening such a challenge.

“These people have been dead for weeks,” Anders said, stepping carefully over another lifeless form. They were dressed in servants’ uniforms, and looked elven. Fenris’s lip curled and he drew himself up, tight, angry, casting around the empty room as if expecting his master to come swooping down from the rafters. They were in a kitchen, Hawke realized, or what had once been a kitchen. Plates and pottery were smashed all over the room, and the cupboard doors hung askew. There were more bodies.

“I am not afraid of you, Danarius!” Fenris shouted. His voice echoed in the empty house.

“Let’s go,” Hawke said. “I’m eager to meet this man.”

“The stench in here…” Carver said. “It’s unbelievable.” Glass crunched under their boots. A table had been shoved against a wall. Hawke spotted a knife near one rotting hand, and wondered if the elves had tried to defend themselves. They appeared to have been killed in a mixture of ritual and haste. Thick dust coated almost everything, and most of the furniture was broken and rotting.

Every lamp and every fireplace blazed with light.

They were halfway across the room when Hawke heard the groan. He stopped, but it was Fenris who was the first to reach for a weapon, pulling the broadsword slowly from his back. The lights dimmed but did not go out.

“Shit,” Ander said.

And the shadows shifted, and twisted, and moved. A trio of shades leapt into being.

Hawke grabbed the staff from his back, and he opened himself to the Fade.

“Be careful,” Anders warned. “These things will suck the life right out of you.”

“I know a girl at the Rose who does that,” Carver said.

Fenris charged the shades.

He was all fierceness and fury, and it made him reckless. Being this close to the master who had hunted him, having help at his back rather than being left to face it alone. A part of Hawke’s mind wondered, very briefly, how long the elf had been running. It was a heavy weight for those slender shoulders.

The skeletons around the room began to rise, clatter of rotting flesh and bone pulling itself up from the ground, and the stink of them was heavy, overwhelming. Hawke saw the shades close in around Fenris, obscuring him, their shadows shifting, growing darker, and he began to take a step forward when a sharp pain shot across his arm. One of the corpses had slashed him with a butcher knife. She smiled, revealing broken teeth and yellow, lifeless eyes. Hawke threw her off and called lightening.

In the unnatural gloom that filled the room, his spell was almost blinding, striking down on the shades in long thin daggers of light. Hawke ignored the corpse as she rallied, and he rushed the shades, swinging his staff to strike the nearest, the blow infused with lightning, lifting the hairs on his arms even as it banished the demon.

The remaining two turned their attention to him, swinging the dark ovals of their faces, lurching forward, and he swung again, and they went up in flames.

“On me!” Carver said, and hurled himself at the corpse as it went for Hawke again.

Fenris was on the ground, dazed, and he stared at Hawke in a moment of naked horror, but there were more demons filling the room. Hawke thrust his hand down at him.

“All right?” he asked.

“Getting overwhelmed!” Carver called.

“ _Hawke!”_  Anders said.

“Come on,” Hawke jerked his hand at the elf again. He hadn’t thought the shades had been at Fenris that long, but he seemed utterly shaken. “It’s going to take all of us to do this,” he said, and saw the elf’s expression close, and harden. Fenris took his hand, and hauled himself up.

\--

As they moved through the mansion it quickly became apparent that it had been abandoned for years. Windows were smashed, furniture was rotting, things were growing in the carpet. And it was infested with demons. The story was readily apparent – there were small signs an attempt at rehabilitating the house had started, then been aborted. New furniture, still wrapped in moving sheets, stood next to the crumbling carcasses of the old. Dust had been cleared from one table, and coated the next in an incredibly layer. Whatever household staff had been called in to make the mansion livable again had been murdered –  _sacrificed_  – some weeks ago. Their bodies littered every room and every hall – maids in once-crisp uniforms, carpenters with their tools still hanging from their belts, footmen and page boys and butlers and stewards. They lay where they had fallen and they waited, silent and deadly. Their corpses, fodder for any demon seeking a form to inhabit, were like dwarven traps ready to come alive the very moment someone stepped wrong.

Entire chunks of the ceiling were gone. Under the starlight that filtered in through rotting ceiling slats, Hawke and his companions, weary as they were, fought for every step they took. It was hard-won, the ground they took, and Hawke insisted on sweeping every room they passed, eradicating every demon that crossed their path, until finally, at the end, they stood in the master suite.

There was nothing.

Hawke had expected nothing. The house was a trap, just as the hovel in the alienage had been. Perhaps the magister waited nearby, spiderlike, watching from across the street. Perhaps he lurked still, somewhere within the neighborhood, the bogeyman that had hunted Fenris across countries. But he was a coward and a snake, and he was not here to face his prey when that prey came, voluntarily, to call.

Something deflated inside Fenris when he realized it was over. A light went out in him, his fury evaporating, shoulders falling. Whatever fear he had felt, this had been his chance – a glimpse of the end of his long run, whatever the outcome.

When he turned to Hawke, when he spoke, his posture was subservient, shoulders soft and rolled forward, eyes downcast. He addressed Hawke’s shoes.

“Gone,” he said, his voice soft, defeated. “I had hoped…no, it doesn’t matter any longer.”

Hawke tried to find something to say, and couldn’t. This wasn’t his strong point. He wasn’t good with words, with condolences, with other people’s pain. But he watched – he saw the way the elf gathered his strength around himself, like a cloak, the way he pulled himself up and forced himself to look up again, to meet Hawke’s eyes.

“I assume Danarius left valuables behind,” Fenris said. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. He was practically shaking with the effort of maintaining eye contact. “Take them if you wish. I…I need some air.” And he broke, and fled for the door, and Hawke let him.

\--

Leo was brooding.

Anders could see it, as they rifled through the master suite, looking for any and everything of value they could salvage. His brow was heavy, his hands impatient, shoving chests away from himself as soon as he was done with them, pacing the room as he waited for the others to satisfy themselves. He looked ghastly with blood dried in his beard and across his cheeks, and when he raked his hands through his hair, it stood on end. In the starlight, Anders could see that his healing earlier in the night had not been as complete as he had thought. A long, shallow scar cut across the bridge of Leo’s nose.

“Well,” Anders said, “We lived. That’s something, I guess.”

He wasn’t sure Leo heard him. Across the room, Carver was trying on hats that had been abandoned, and laughing at his reflection in the shattered remains of a mirror. Tevinter style did not suit his blunt Fereldan frame.

When Leo spoke, it was sudden. His voice was hard. He asked, “How long do you suppose he’s been running?”

“A while, I’d guess,” Anders said, “You get to a point when the runner is all you are anymore. That’s where he is, I think. Not a man anymore. Just prey.”

Leo grunted. He looked troubled.

Anders said, “This isn’t the kind of trouble we should be getting ourselves involved in, anyway.”

Leo stared at him for a moment, silent, unreadable. When he broke his gaze, it was almost violent, the way he moved for the door. “Air sounds like a good idea,” he said.

“Bloody – don’t let him go alone,” Carver said. He moved to follow his brother, still wearing one of the silly-looking hats. After a moment, Anders trailed after.

Leo hit the door like a drowning man coming up for air, pushing it open so hard it hit the opposite wall with a bang and a loud crack, and how it didn’t wake the entire neighborhood, Anders didn’t know.  Outside he stopped, his dark head falling back, face upturned to the cold night sky, and Anders, frowning, reached for his shoulder. “Hawke,” he began.

“It never ends.”

Anders jerked and dropped his hand. Hawke had gone stiff and still at the sound of the elf’s voice, and turned his head. Fenris was nearby, back pressed to a wall of the building, his eyes on the moon and his expression hard.

“I escaped a land of dark magic, only to have it haunt me at every turn,” Fenris said, more as if to himself than to him, his lips twisted in distaste, snarling like a rabid dog. “It is a plague burned into my flesh and my soul.”

Leo shifted, moved forward, as if to approach him, but stopped when Fenris turned his head. His eyes seemed to glow in the dim lighting.

“And now I find myself in the company of yet more mages.”

No one answered him. Anders was no stranger to the gaze the elf levelled at him and Leo. Like he was trash –  _dangerous_  trash – a vile, disgusting, deadly thing. He felt himself tense as Fenris pushed himself away from the wall, as the elf approached them with his chin up and his shoulders square.

“I saw you casting spells inside. I should have realized what you were.” He stopped before reaching them. He hadn’t reached for his sword yet. There was something agonized in his expression. Anders didn’t care. Fenris addressed Hawke’s right shoulder. “Tell me, then: what manner of  _mage_  are you? What is it you seek?”

Leo didn’t answer for a very long moment. Anders expected to see his jaw clench, his shoulders roll. He expected him to dig in his heels, to flash that amber-eyed glare, clench his fists, step up to the elf and demand to know how he thought it was any of his damned business.

Instead, Leo’s answer was quiet. He said, honestly, “I’m just trying to get by.”

The elf looked surprised, but some of the tension left his small body. He nodded, as if that made sense.

“Yet, I have seen many crimes done in the name of survival,” Fenris said.

Leo nodded in turn. He opened his mouth, but it was Carver who shoved forward, hat slipping lopsided over one eye. He put himself between his brother and the elf and made himself look as large as he possibly could.

“If you have a problem with my brother, you have a problem with  _me_ ,” he said.

Fenris seemed surprised by this. He took a step back, not out of fear, but courtesy, and inclined his head.

“I imagine I appear ungrateful,” he realized. His gaze shifted between the brothers. “I apologize,” he said. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”

“Funny way of showing it,” Anders muttered. No one seemed to hear him.

“I did not find Danarius, but I still owe you a debt,” Fenris said. “Here is all the coin I have, as Anso promised.”

Leo reached past his brother to accept the purse, the one they had seen Fenris earlier slip coin into. It was thin, threadbare, but coin clinked within it. Hawke shifted it in his hand, staring at it for a long moment of silence before he lifted his eyes to the elf once again.

“Should you find yourself in need of assistance, I would gladly render it,” Fenris said.

Leo’s thumb skimmed absently over the coin pouch. “Your old master must want something more than just a runaway slave,” he said, and Fenris took a breath, and his gaze shifted away.

“He doesn’t want me at all,” he said. “Just the markings on my skin. They are lyrium, burned into my flesh to provide the power that Danarius required of his _pet_ – and now he wishes his precious investment returned, even if he must rip it from my corpse.”

Leo was quiet for a moment. His thumb pressed the coins in their bag. There was compassion in his expression, but Leopold Hawke was a compassionate man, much more than anyone gave him credit for. His eyes rolled back up to meet the elf’s, and he smiled, shook his head.

“Seems like a waste of a perfectly handsome elf,” he said.

Anders felt the world drop from under him. For a moment, he lost track of all reality.

The elf was laughing. Leo was smiling. Carver was rolling his eyes.

“Maker,” Carver hissed. “ _Really_?”

There was considerably more warmth to the elf’s voice when he spoke again. Some of the wariness with which he’d first approached them seemed lessened. “The truth is, I know nothing of the ritual that placed these markings on me,” he said. “It was Danarius’s choice, one he now regrets.”

“I’ve seen some of your abilities,” Leo said. “Do they come from those markings?”

“Some,” he acknowledged with a nod. “All I know is that, even in the Imperium, warriors such as myself are rare. Perhaps they believe I should feel honored?” His lip quirked, as if attempting to be amused, and Leo echoed the expression. Anders felt cold, watching them.

“Do you think your master will keep chasing you?” Leo asked, and he sounded concerned, genuinely so. Fenris lifted his shoulders in a slight shrug.

“He is too proud not to.”

Leo nodded, and Anders felt it, a deep and staggering surety that the other mage was going to add this elf to their number. That Leo, for all his stupid, self-sacrificing, honorable bullshit code, would never be able to let Fenris go back to running alone.

“Perhaps one day the hunt will cost him more than he is willing to pay,” Fenris mused. “But I doubt that matters any longer.”

“You didn’t seem all that thrilled with me a moment ago,” Leo pointed out.

Fenris shifted, and he shrugged again. His answer was honest. “You are not Danarius,” he said, simply. “Whether you are anything like him remains to be seen.”

Leo nodded, and he took a breath. He said, “I’m planning an expedition I might need help with.”

\--

“What was that all about?” Varric asked as they rejoined him. He nodded toward the mansion, in front of which Fenris still stood, his eyes following them.

“What  _was_  that all about?” Anders asked, eyeing Hawke.

Hawke hardly heard either question. He turned the money pouch over in his hand. He could count the coin through the thin material. It was precious little in the grand scheme of things, but it would keep a man fed for a week. Two if he were an exceptionally careful man.

_Here is all the coin I have, as Anso promised._

“Hawke was  _flirting_?” Varric asked, in response to Carver’s explanation. “With the spiky elf?”

“I don’t think what he was doing deserves to be called  _flirting_. It was more like: making everyone around you want to die in less than ten words.”

“Sheesh. Sorry I missed it. Hey, Hawke, buddy, everything taken care of, or - ?”

“As much as it’s going to be,” Anders said. “Drinks at the Hanged Man? I think we could all use one?” The smile he gave Hawke was odd. Hawke noticed it only in a distracted sort of way, his mind more concerned with the money in his hand than with the mood swings of his fellow mage.

Hawke stopped.

“You all go on,” Hawke said. The others turned back to look at him, questioning, and he motioned them onward. “I’ll catch up.”

“Hawke,” Anders frowned.

“I’ll catch up,” he said again. He didn’t wait for their opinions on the matter, didn’t wait for it to be debated, argued, discussed. He turned and jogged back the way they had come before he could change his mind.

Fenris was still standing there where they had left him. Alone, the backdrop of the crumbling mansion made him appear smaller than he was. Every inch, every angle of his body seemed to scream his story – the burden of his flight, the weight of his freedom, the isolation and danger that haunted his every hour. He held himself like an animal ready to flee at the first sound. The circles under his eyes were dark. He watched Hawke approach, his arms crossed, his expression unreadable.

“Did you forget something?” he asked, and his voice was careful. He looked surprised when Hawke offered him the bag.

“I can’t take it,” Hawke said.

Fenris was quiet for a long moment. His brows drew down in confusion, and a frown crossed his lips. “I lured you here under false pretenses,” he said at last. “You’ve earned your pay. Even if it isn’t near the amount you were promised.”

“I’ll get over it,” Hawke said. He motioned again with the bag. “Take it.”

“I…” the elf hesitated. His frown deepened. “I don’t understand.”

“You said it was all the coin you had.”

“Yes.”

“Then take it back. I don’t want it.”

“I can find more,” he said. “You earned – “

“Pay me back some other way,” Hawke said. “I’m not taking a man’s last coin. I don’t care. You can – you said you would come if I had need of you, right? Work some jobs with me, and I’ll take what you owe out of your cut. But I’m not taking this. I’ll leave it right here on the street if you won’t take it.”

“Stubborn,” Fenris said, and his lips twitched into that almost-smile. He seemed more perplexed than annoyed. Slowly, as if afraid of some trap, the elf extended his hand. His fingers hesitated, then flattened. Hawke found himself grinning as he dropped the pouch into his palm.

“You have no idea,” he said.

 


	24. An Interlude

Carver’s hair was a riotous mess of bedhead. He had a hand shoved down his smalls, scratching something, as he lifted a foot to kick the end of the bunk they shared.

“Leo,” he said. “Bacon?”

In response, Hawke threw his pillow at him. He rolled over, and used his arm instead.

“Leo says I get his bacon!” Carver called. It didn’t take much for his voice to carry in Gamlen’s tiny apartment. He kicked the bed again for good measure before he retreated from the room.

Hawke’s entire body ached as he pulled himself out of bed. He had overexerted himself, and he could tell he was going to pay the price for it. Where Carver could sleep off his exhaustion, Hawke’s went deeper than tired muscles and sore limbs. He was grateful, not for the first time, that he had managed to win the argument over possession of the bottom bunk. It was low and cramped and hard as stone, but he didn’t have to worry about navigating a ladder as he stumbled from the bed.

The room he shared with his mother and brother was stifling and claustrophobic on a good day. Carver’s filthy laundry formed a semi-permanent pile in the corner near the bunk bed the siblings shared, and his sword stood stalwart sentry propped against the opposite wall. Their mother’s little bed stood separate, partitioned off by a dingy little sheet that had once boasted a floral pattern but which was now merely grey, with a splatter of vaguely-flower-like brown splotches. The whole room generally reeked of a foul combination of her perfume and Carver’s sweat.

Blearily, Hawke fished some fresh clothes from his chest and made his way out, into the precious little scrap of back yard Gamlen’s ground-floor flat boasted.

He hadn’t had a thing to drink the night before, but he felt hungover all the same. His pulse throbbed in his temples, and with it the Fade, waiting, teeming with things predatory and dark and ready to gobble up a careless mage. It would be too easy right now – too easy –

Hawke hadn’t reached for the Fade, but for a moment he thought he felt it anyway, like a presence just over his shoulder, summoned by the mere thought of it.

Kirkwall, he had discovered, was unstable in more ways than the obvious. Some days the barrier between this world and the next felt paper thin, inconsequential, as if a hard thought could send the Veil ripping in half. It was particularly obvious when he was weakened by exhaustion or injury, and the demons that waited on the other side pressed their faces, eager and hungry, to the barrier. They promised him strength, power, security – all the things he needed, all the things he wanted.

They lied.

Out in the yard, Hawke closed his eyes. He tilted his head to the bright warmth of the rising sun, and he waited for the moment to pass. When it did, he pumped cold water into the rickety wooden tub, and washed up as quickly as he could.

Hawke felt closer to human by the time he headed back into the house.

“Talk some sense into your brother,” his mother pled, as Hawke squeezed himself into the tiny kitchen. He paused by the stove to pour himself a cup of coffee, and tried not to let the aroma of cooking breakfast turn his belly.

“What’s Carver done now?” Hawke asked. He could finally afford to feed his family a little better, but Leandra’s wrists were still thin and fragile. Their first year in Kirkwall seemed to have aged her even faster than the unforgiving life of a Fereldan farmwife had. She noticed his scrutiny, and tugged her sleeves down. She motioned him to the table with a wooden spoon.

“Everything is almost ready,” she promised, even as Carver scowled.

“I haven’t done anything!” Carver said, jumping right to the previous topic of conversation.

Leandra didn’t miss a beat. Her caring mother’s voice was easily swapped for a stern one. “I don’t like you hanging around those boys,” she said.

“I’m not a child,” Carver insisted, childishly. His morning cowlick only added to the effect. “And it’s not like Leo’s friends are any better.”

Hawke missed the sunny quiet of the yard.

If he hadn’t been in such a compromised state, he might have considered skipping breakfast. Instead, he helped himself to a chair.

He had scarcely sat down when they heard a knock at the front door.

“Probably another one of your uncle’s creditors,” Leandra frowned. Hawke was already rising.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said. He was grateful for the excuse to get away. He took his coffee with him, and hoped that by the time he got back to the table, the conversation would have moved on.

As he made his way out into the hall, he heard his mother ask, “What’s wrong with Leo’s friends?”

He groaned.

Hawke tried to remember if he’d seen Gamlen come in last night. If he wasn’t passed out in bed, he would be down at the Rose, or one of Kirkwall’s countless gambling dens. Tracking him down was more a matter of luck and persistence than actual skill. Hawke opened the door prepared to send the unfortunate collector off on a pointless chase.

It wasn’t a debt collector.

The elf that stood at the door seemed out of place here, out in the open, snowy hair kissed by the fragile morning sun. His dark clothing and furtive posture were meant for shadows and concealment, not for boldly knocking on strangers’ doors.

Hawke, utterly unprepared for the shock of seeing him again so soon, momentarily forgot how to speak. Fenris had dark circles like bruises under his eyes, but his gaze was sharp, and bright with intelligence. Hawke found himself wondering if he had managed to get any sleep at all. A run down mansion that had previously been infested with slavers and demons was hardly conductive to a restful night. Surely every noise, every creak and groan, would have sounded like an intruder. Did the howl of the wind through the holes in the ceiling call to mind the horns of Tevinter hunters?

“I’m here to work,” Fenris stated in lieu of a more traditional greeting, and he frowned when Hawke’s only response was to stare. “I intend to settle my debt.”

“All right,” Hawke heard himself agree. He stepped backwards, propping the door open, and Fenris gave him a curious look. “Breakfast first,” he said, and motioned him inside.

He wasn’t sure if he expected the elf to take him up on the offer. Fenris peered past him, into the dim, cramped interior of Gamlen’s apartment, and after a moment he took a step back.

“I’ll wait.”

\--

Carver looked up as Leo came back inside, and he watched his brother slam through cabinets and cupboards, stuff bacon and cheese into biscuits and wrap them for travelling.

“Is it a job?” he asked, perking.

Leo said, “If you want in, you’d best dress quickly.”

Carver bolted from the table.

For a moment it surprised him, when he stepped outside and saw the elf waiting. But then, Leo’s odd behavior inside started to make sense. Carver hadn’t failed to notice last night, when Leo had paid them their shares of the earnings out of his own pocket, rather than the purse Fenris had given him. Nor had he failed to notice Leo’s terrible attempt at flirting. His brother simply didn’t have Carver’s wit and charm when it came to those things.

Now he watched Leo give Fenris one of the biscuits he had prepared. He watched Fenris take it, cautiously, and wait for Leo to eat before he took his first bite.

“It’s burnt,” Fenris said.

Leo’s smile was humorless, but there was amusement in his eyes. “Mother is hardly an accomplished chef.”

The elf chuckled. He took another bite. “The dough. It’s still raw in the middle.”

Leo said, “I’ll be sure to give her your compliments.”

“Please do,” Fenris said. “It’s the best thing I’ve had in weeks.”

“Her baking’s good,” Carver said. “But sugar’s so expensive lately.”

Neither of them seemed to hear him.

“This is what you do?” Fenris asked. “Wander the city seeking tasks from men like Anso?”

“Sometimes I return lost knickknacks.”

“A noble cause.”

“I’ll go easy on you,” Leo said. “Since you’re new.”

“Lucky me.”

Carver rolled his eyes. He licked his palm and tried to smooth down his cowlick as he did his best to ignore the warm quiet murmur between the two. He had almost forgotten how obnoxious his brother was when someone struck his fancy. It had been years, but the second hand embarrassment was just as painful as he remembered.

“I’m really sorry about him,” Carver told the elf. “He’ll get over it in a few days.”

In response, Fenris only gave him a curious look.

Carver tried to change the subject.

“You know,” he said. “I have a tattoo.”

“You have a what?”

“A tattoo,” Carver said. “A lot of us got them before Ostagar. It’s a mabari. For strength.”

The elf glanced at him, frowning. He asked, “Does it curse you with the ability to reach into a man and tear out his insides?”

Carver missed a step. “Uh,” he said, intelligently. “I can make it bark?”

“Please,” Fenris said. “Don’t.”

Now Leo was looking at him, frowning. “Since when do – _where_ \- ? You know what, never mind.”

“It’s a very tasteful tattoo,” Carver said.

“Please stop.”

“The ladies go crazy over it.”

“I don’t want to hear this.”

\--

Leo knew he would be putting them all at risk if they got into a situation where he needed his magic, so instead he opted to take them to one of the orchards outside the city, where the local farmers were usually willing to spare a few coins for a day’s hard work. It wasn’t stable income – not for a Fereldan anyway – but they lucked into finding a farmer who agreed to provide lunch and a handful of coins in exchange for a few hours of labor.

Carver wasn’t pleased with the task. “If I wanted to be a farmer, I never would have left Lothering in the first place,” he griped. “Can’t we just kill something?”

Fenris didn’t comment on the odd choice of task, but for Hawke the work was a welcome break from the everyday reality of what his life had become. It felt good to use his muscles instead of his magic, to scurry up the ladders and carefully twist the apples free, to drop them in the bag slung ‘round his torso and feel it grow heavier and heavier. The sun was on his skin and the wind was in his hair, and from here the stench of the foundry was almost gone. Sweat dripped down his back, and when his shirt became soaked through he removed it, and tossed it down, and continued to work. _Human_ , the work reminded him. _Real._ The temptations of the Fade seemed nonexistent, when he could work like this, his worries and stresses far away. He felt himself calming, relaxing into the burn of tired muscles.

Around noon the foreman called for a break, and they were given sandwiches made of hard cheese and cured ham, fresh water to drink from the well, and as many of the bruised apples the farmer wouldn’t be able to sell as they wanted. They sat under one of the trees in a tired kind of silence, and Hawke watched the ravenous way Fenris ate, the way the juice from the fruit rolled down his chin. He had discarded parts of his armor for easier movement, and looked less like a fugitive in his tunic and his leggings, his hair windblown and soft. The work had put some color back into his cheeks.

For once, Hawke felt like he had done something right.

\--

“I don’t understand,” Merrill said.

“It was all day,” Carver said. “Out on that farm – they worked us like dogs, and what did we get in return? Five coins each. Five.”

 “Oh, but it was such a lovely day,” Merrill said. “Did you have a picnic?”

“No, we – well, I guess we did, kind of.”

“I love picnics.”

“I – “ Carver stopped, shook his head. “No, that doesn’t – are you even listening?”

“Of course I’m listening,” she said. “You have a lovely voice.”

“I – wait. What?”

“But you do seem to be overreacting, don’t you think?”

“Over - ? Merrill…”

“It’s so nice that Hawke is making friends. He’s such a nice man, but I think he must be very lonely.”

“You’re definitely not listening.”

“You’re grumpy because you don’t like doing farm work, and also because think your brother wants to snuggle with Fenris,” she said. “And it’s very difficult for you because you’re tired, and that makes you even more grumpy, and also because you’re protective of your brother, and because you think he acts _very_ silly when he likes someone. But really, he was probably only being friendly, and I think you would feel better if you had a nice long nap.”

“Just forget it,” Carver said.

Merrill frowned, and fell silent for a moment, looking away. Her little hands toyed with the drink she held, and she tapped her feet.

“Do you want to dance?” she asked finally. The Hanged Man had a singer tonight. Her voice strained at the high notes, and was a little nasal. Carver shook his head.

“I don’t feel like dancing,” he said.

He missed the way Merrill’s face fell, the slight slump to her shoulders. She hummed along with the tune for a moment, tapped her feet meaningfully, bounced her finger against the table in time with the music.

“I do like dancing,” she said at last. When Carver didn’t answer she added, “On nights with a full moon, my clan would dance the night away, and if it was hot, we would take all our clothes off. It was very beautiful, everyone’s bodies moving in the moonlight. I think those were my favorite times.”

Carver wasn’t listening. He drank, and he used his index finger to trace little squiggles against the table where moisture had run off his cup. Merrill sighed.

“Now this has got to be the most depressing party I ever laid eyes on.” Carver’s eyes were filled with the vision of Isabela’s full hips as she came to a stop beside their table. He jerked, and pulled his gaze up, only pausing a moment on the round softness of her breasts before remembering himself and putting his eyes firmly on her face. She smirked knowingly at him. “You two look like you’ve just left a wake,” she said.

“Carver’s very tired and grumpy,” Merrill informed her. “Even though he got to have a nice picnic out in the country today.”

“That’s not - !”

“When isn’t Carver tired and grumpy?” Isabela asked. “Why aren’t you two dancing? It’s not every night Corff springs for a singer.”

“Carver didn’t feel like it,” Merrill said, and her shoulders slumped again, and this time Carver caught it. He felt a tickle of guilt, and drew himself up, but before he could make the offer Isabela had swept Merrill off the bench and into her arms.

“Well come on, then, kitten,” she said, and Merrill laughed, and squealed as a playful swat to her backside sent her toward the open area where tables had been cleared for dancing. It was empty at the moment. Isabela said, “We’ll show him how it’s done.”

The singer gave them a nod and started a new song, and several bar patrons gave appreciative whistles. Carver watched Merrill spin and dip, watched her laugh, face flushed and happy as Isabela caught her ‘round the waist.

“All right!”

Carver jumped a little, and tore his eyes away as Anders plopped himself onto the bench across from him. The blond had two mugs, and slid one his way meaningfully, and Carver couldn’t help but feel suspicious as he accepted it.

“All right, what?” Carver asked, slowly. His hands closed around the fresh mug as if afraid he would find it full of spiders. He had the distinct feeling that he would regret answering the mage.

He wasn’t wrong.

“All right, I’m going to ask you something.”

“Maker. Do you _have_ to?”

“I think so. Nothing else is working.”

He noted the color in Anders’s cheeks, and he felt his frown deepen. He glanced past him to the other table, where Leo and Varric and Fenris and Aveline seemed to be having a very good time, laughing at some idiotic story of the dwarf’s. They had all started the night over there, but Carver’s dark mood had caused him to distance himself, and Merrill had followed. It irked him to see they were continuing to have a good time. “How drunk are you?” Carver asked, returning his gaze to the mage, and Anders shrugged.

“Never mind that.”

“Bloody wonderful.” Carver’s shoulders and knees and back ached from the work they had done that day, and his first mug of ale hadn’t helped. He motioned for Anders to wait, and he drank deeply, and he tried to keep his eyes from straying back to Isabela and Merrill. Anders waited. His gaze was intense, almost fevered.

Carver got through what had been left of his first mug, and got a decent start on the second. The dance floor was filling up now. Surrounded by dock workers, Isabela had her arms around Merrill from behind. Whatever dance they were doing would have scandalized the old biddies back in Lothering.

“All right, Blight take you,” Carver said at last. “I’m ready. What is it?”

“How does one get to that brother of yours?”

Carver frowned. He narrowed his eyes. “Get to?” he repeated.

“Romantically.”

“Oh,” Carver said. “Sod this. I’m going home.”


	25. Grudge

After the unexpected success of Meeran’s first job, Carver had a lot less trouble convincing his brother to take on a second. When the intended target ended up being a Ferelden sympathizer, who actively worked to better the lives of refugees like them, Hawke found himself unable to go through with the task.

For once, his brother agreed with him.

Somehow, word got around. At the Hanged Man, their countrymen cheered the brothers Hawke, and fought over who could buy their heroes the next round. Carver got very drunk, and in a rare occurrence, Hawke did too, and they spent the evening in comradery and revelry such as the two had rarely seen together.

“It was like – everything bad between us had never happened,” Hawke said. Anders hummed, and leaned in with the tweezers, and continued trying to get debris out of the wound over his eye. It had to be clean before he healed it. Hawke said, again, “I appreciate you doing this for me. I know the hour is – ridiculous.”

“The hour is more than ridiculous,” Anders said. “The hour doesn’t even know the meaning of the word ‘dawn’.”

“Sorry,” Hawke said. “I know you need your rest.”

Anders looked surprised. He dropped a few tiny pebbles from the end of the tweezer, and wiped at the wound with a wet cloth. He said, “Tell me again what happened?”

“Meeran and his men,” Hawke said. “Jumped me on the way home.”

“Are they - ?”

“Dead,” Hawke said. He didn’t flinch at the word. He was just grateful Carver hadn’t been there to be caught in it.

“Were you alone?”

“No, luckily Fenris was with me.”

Anders was still for a moment. “Fenris,” he said at last. He put the cloth in a bucket of water and reached for the tweezers again. His voice was strange, too cheerful, almost. Hawke couldn’t understand it. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with that elf since he joined us.”

“He wants to work,” Hawke said. “And he doesn’t have other responsibilities I’d be pulling him away from.”

“I suppose that’s true. But what do we know about him, really? Are you sure we can trust him?”

“I like him,” Hawke said.

“I don’t.”

Hawke didn’t acknowledge that. The two had not hit it off well, and had already had more than a few ugly run ins. He wasn’t going to interfere. They would sort it out eventually.

“I don’t like the thought of him sitting alone in that house all day,” Hawke admitted at last. He might not have, were it not so late, and the clinic so dark and quiet around them. Their voices were low and hushed, almost intimate. It was easier to talk to Anders this way. Hawke didn’t feel the need to be as guarded. “Can you imagine, just – waiting, knowing someone is going to come for you, try to take away everything you’ve worked so hard for?”

“Yes,” Anders said tightly. “I do.”

“I don’t like it.”

“I’m surprised he’s still here,” Anders said. “He should move on. Keep running. Leave us out of his shit.”

“No,” Hawke said. “I’m glad he’s here. You’ve got to admit, he’s good to have around.”

“I don’t have to admit anything that’s not true,” Anders said.

“Anders,” Hawke caught his hand as he reached for the cloth again. Anders grew very still, looking back at him slowly. Hawke said, “You can’t tell Carver about this, all right? Do you understand?”

“About…Fenris?”

“About Meeran,” Hawke said. “Things were so – the other night, I had my brother back. I don’t want to lose him again. He’d blame himself, if he knew they tried to kill me. He’s the one who insisted on the job.”

“I don’t think your brother holds himself responsible for anything,” Anders said.

“Please,” Hawke repeated. The other mage hesitated, then nodded. Hawke dropped his hand.

“Take off your shirt,” Anders said. “If I’m going to heal you so that your brother doesn’t know anything happened, I’m going to need to see how extensive the bruising is.”

“All right,” Hawke said, and lifted his hands to the buttons of the faded red flannel. His sleeveless undershirt followed a moment later. Anders moved the lantern closer to better inspect the damage.

“I thought you said the elf was with you,” Anders said.

“They were more focused on me than him,” Hawke said. “Meeran – well, it’s a good thing I killed him, because we are definitely not on speaking terms anymore.”

Anders snorted, softly. “You do realize that mages are supposed to stay on the sidelines during a battle – not go stand in the middle and let the bad guys throw punches at them while they summon fireballs.”

“That sounds dull.”

“The frightening thing is, I can’t tell if you’re serious or not.”

“A little mystery keeps life interesting.”

“You’re weird at ungodly hours of the morning.” Anders poked at one of the bruises, and Hawke flinched. He had him lift his arm, and tested for broken ribs or any internal injury he should keep in mind. Finally he nodded to himself and rose, picking up the bucket of water and pouring it down the sink. “I should be able to heal you up good as new,” he said at last. “What do I get in return? A kiss?”

Hawke frowned. “Anders…” he warned. There was an edge to his voice that he didn’t entirely mean for there to be. The other mage stayed at the sink a moment longer than was necessary, but was smiling as he came back.

“Kidding!” he said. “This one’s free. The next one, though, I definitely get a kiss.”

“I shouldn’t have bothered you at this hour,” Hawke said, rising. He reached for his undershirt and pulled it on, but the flannel seemed to be hiding somewhere in the shadows on the floor. After a moment’s searching, he gave it up, and headed for the door.

“It was a joke!” Anders said, returning. “Come on – jokes? Lively banter? You were doing so well a minute ago.”

“Just heal me,” Hawke said, and Anders frowned, and reached out to cup his head in his hands. The spell wasn’t quite as gentle as he was used to, but Hawke probably deserved that.

“You could always stay,” Anders said, when Hawke, healed, headed for the door again. He lifted his hands in a placating manner in response to whatever expression Hawke wore on his face. “I don’t mean – I’m not implying anything naughty. But it _is_ very late, and the streets are dangerous, and I’ve got plenty of cots. I’ll make you breakfast in the morning.”

“Good night, Anders,” Hawke said. He showed himself out.

\--

After he was gone, Anders found the forgotten shirt in the shadows on the floor, and picked it up, gathering it close to himself. He sat on the edge of the cot Leo had been sitting on, and he held the garment against his chest. It was still warm from the other man’s body, fragrant with his scent.

They had been doing so well, for a moment there. It was easier when he got Leo alone, when he could pry the walls down and see the bits and pieces of him that were kept guarded. Leo had a boyish smile that made his heart flipflop. He’d pushed a little harder than he should have, but he didn’t want the man to forget his interest, or to think it had waned.

The night could have ended better, but Anders couldn’t help but to feel a little encouraged. Leo had come to him, had spoken openly about his brother, trusted him with his secret. Anders had gotten to see something rare when Leo talked about his relationship with Carver.

And he couldn’t help but to think of him there, soft and open and smiling. He thought of the broad expanse of his bare chest, and the way the weight on those big shoulders had seemed lessened, and he couldn’t help but to picture what it would be like, to share other nights together like this.

Anders slipped the flannel on, surrounded by Hawke’s heat and his scent as he headed back to bed.

\--

The Free Marches were supposed to be headed into fall and winter, but the day dawned bright and clear and hot and Carver hated it immediately.

In Ferelden, they would have had a nice comforting few inches of snow by now. He would be waking to the crackle of the fire, not the feel of his smalls plastered to his ass with sweat. (Of course, in Ferelden, he would also have been expected to brave that cold, to stomp his feet into work boots and head out to the barn or run drills with the rest of his Cailan’s army. Sweaty small clothes might be a fair trade off for the discomfort of watching his piss steam in the frozen air.)

He found himself alone in the house, with no sign of either Leo or Gamlen. Mother had at least had the decency to leave a note – next to a plate of congealed overcooked eggs and a mug of very cold coffee. She was headed out to try to pester the Viscount again.

Carver threw away the note. The Amells were never going to be nobility again, and the sooner she came to terms with that the happier she would be. Their cause was lost a long time ago.

Carver threw out the eggs and went to check the larder for something else. When he found it empty he was faced with the difficult decision of whether or not to eat said eggs off the garbage pile. He had lost a pretty heavy hand at cards last night, and didn’t have the money for breakfast. He could always break into Leo’s expedition funds…

His stomach gave a loud rumble.

Before he could make the decision, there was a knock at the door. Carver scratched his hands through his hair and debated putting on some pants, then went to the door anyway, tugging on his sweaty smalls along the way.

Merrill was at the door.

“Good morning, Carver!” she greeted cheerfully, as he yelped and tried to hide himself behind the door.

“What – what are you doing here?” he demanded, as she strode in without being invited. She looked pretty and fresh in a nice green dress, and she carried a basket over one arm.

“I brought breakfast!” she said. She motioned with the basket. “Are you all alone this morning? Oh, I guess it will just be the two of us, then. Do you like muffins?”

“Merrill!”

Something particularly pained, perhaps, in his voice caused her to look up from where she had begun setting Gamlen’s dingy little table for them. She had even brought a small clay vase and some wildflowers to set in the middle.

“Oh, no,” she said. “You don’t like muffins?”

“Muffins are fine,” he said tightly.

“Oh? Well, what could be the matter, then?”

“I’m practically naked!”

She blinked, glanced down at him, then shrugged. “I guess you are, at that,” she said. “Are you coming to eat or not?”

His stomach rumbled. Carver went and sat down at the table.

After they ate, and after Carver got dressed and managed to do something with his hair that didn’t make him look like a lunatic (he didn’t need to shave today, much to his disappointment), he and Merrill went out.

“Carver, I really think you’re overreacting,” Merrill said.

“Overreacting. Right. Because you saw me in my smalls.”

“Dalish run around naked as birds all the time. It didn’t embarrass me.”

“But it embarrassed _me_!”

“You have a very nice tushie.”

“Nice tus – _Maker_ – then why are we going shopping for underthings?”

“Because your smalls are hideous.”

Carver wanted to argue more. Despite a very nice breakfast with a very pretty girl he was still stinging with embarrassment and one thing Carver Hawke did not know how to handle well was embarrassment.

But Merrill looked up at him with a smile as bright as a summer’s day and he felt every inch of indignation deflate from his body.

“We’ll get you a pretty blue pair,” she announced.

“Never in my life have I cared about whether or not my smalls were _pretty_.”

“Maybe you should,” she said. “That way when a girl sees you in them, you look nice and strapping.”

His face burned. All he could say was, “All right,” and she smiled at him again, warm and happy and inviting.

Carver reached out, tentatively, his fingers brushed hers. He was about to take her hand when a voice called out –

“Hey! You’ve got a lot of nerve showing your face around here, Hawke!”

Carver’s first instinct was to look for his brother, to wonder _what did that ass do now?_

So he was too slow to respond when a pair of goons charged into him, lifted him up, and slammed him, hard, into the wall.

Carver knew them. They were Red Iron – his friends, Sev, and Jame, and –

“Geord! You old bastard – I thought you got arrested!”

Geord and Jame slammed him into the wall again, hard enough to steal his breath. He’d hardly recovered when Sev approached, and drew back, and punched him. His ears rang. He heard Merrill gasp, and the next thing he knew she had moved to put herself in the way, squeezing herself between him and Sev, her arms outspread. Sev chuckled, and spit.

“Tell your little knife ear to get out of the way.”

As fury flashed, white hot through him, Carver realized his friends were not playing a joke on him. He struggled against the other two.

“What did you call her?” Carver demanded. “I’ll fucking kill you, Sev!”

“Oh, dear,” Merrill said. “That was not very nice.”

“Your boy is about to get the beating he deserves,” Sev said. “Get out of the way.”

“No,” she said, “I don’t think I will.” She balled up her hand, and she punched him in the face, hard enough that Sev stumbled back. Merrill grimaced, and shook out her hand, and looked back at Carver. “That smarts! Why didn’t you tell me hitting people hurt?”

Sev spat blood. “Knife ear bitch,” he said. “You can get it too.”

Carver managed to wrench himself free from the others, who, in their surprise, had lessened their hold. He moved around Merrill and threw himself at Sev, and as the other two made to follow, Merrill lifted her hands, and slammed them both back against the wall with an invisible force.

“Now we’ll see how you like it,” she told them with a nod.

Sev had only a moment to look surprised before Carver barreled into him, his momentum carrying them to the ground. Carver punched, and he punched, and he punched.

It wasn’t much of a brawl, and it was over quickly. Carver beat Sev unconscious, and only just managed to keep from doing more. He spat on his friend, and pulled himself to his feet, and when he whirled on the others, he found Merrill still held them with her spell. She wasn’t even really paying attention to them, thumbing the bruises forming on her knuckles.

“Don’t hurt us!” Geord said, struggling. “We didn’t know you had a mage with you!”

“We were just backing him up,” Jame said. “Sev’s angry, he’s not thinking straight. We weren’t going to let him kill you or anything.”

“Right,” Carver said. “How noble of you – what’s this about?”

Jame actually looked surprised. “You don’t know?”

“Do I look like I know?”

“Your brother,” Geord said. “He killed Meeran and half his officers last night. Now the gang’s in shambles. Our rivals are trying to pick us off – we’re all that’s left.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Carver said. “My brother isn’t a murderer. Not without reason anyway.”

“He had reason,” Geord said. He kicked, uselessly, struggling against the invisible wall Merrill held him with. “You and your brother, you let that Harimann prick live. You made Meeran look bad. You – look, please have your witch let us down. Magic gives me the creeps.”

Carver’s blood was boiling. His body hummed with anger, with the need to hurt. “You attacked me,” he said. “You insulted my – you called her a – you were my _friends_.”

“Meeran was like a father to us, Carver,” Jame said. “What are we supposed to do now?”

“Fuck if I care,” Carver said. “Don’t let me see you again. Any of you.”

Merrill let them down, and they gathered up Sev, and hobbled away, struggling to support his weight. Carver stared after them, felt his rage wash away, leaving him feeling scraped out and empty.

“Let me see it,” he said, softly, to Merrill, and he took her hand. It was already beginning to bruise, and she’d cut the first two knuckles on Sev’s teeth, but she hadn’t broken anything. “Why didn’t you tell me about that right hook?”

“Right what?” she asked. She shook her head. “Oh, Carver,” she said. “I don’t like your friends very much.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Yeah, me neither. You want to go to the Hanged Man?”

“It’s not even noon yet.”

“Stuff noon. I need a drink.”

“But what about your underthings?”

“Another day,” he said. He kissed the bruises, a light brush of lips, and she smiled. She turned her hand in his, to examine him in turn, fingers ghosting over his cut, bruised hands.

“I don’t have a healing spell,” she said, “But isn’t it neat that we match?”

“Yeah,” Carver said. He held onto her hand as they began to walk.

She said, “You’re a very good boy, Carver Hawke. I like that very much.”

“Can you say it again without the ‘boy’ part?”

“Why?” she asked. “I think it’s cute.”


	26. Loose Ends

Hawke watched the way Fenris entered the Hanged Man. He noticed the elf’s hesitance, the way he paused, eyes flicking to the bar at a drunkard’s loud noise, shoulders hunched, posture unsure – and he wondered how many other bars Fenris had been in. How many he’d been thrown out of. How many had held traps.

He told himself this time – this bar – this city would be different for him. Hawke didn’t know the elf well, but he made the private promise anyway. No one should have to live his life flinching at shadows.

Hawke stretched, lifting his arms above his head, and casually waved.

“I saw that,” Varric said.

“I wanted to be sure he saw us.”

“Right,” Varric said. His eyes rolled upwards, peering at Hawke dryly over the rim of his reading glasses. “Because you’re the poster boy of thoughtful gestures.”

“What does that even mean?”

Varric returned his attention to the page before him and didn’t answer. Hawke spared another moment to frown at him, purely on principle, before he glanced back to Fenris. He wondered if he was fooling himself, thinking that the elf looked relieved to see them. Fenris moved through the bar to join them, and though he did not seem like the kind of man to hurry, he did move rather quickly.

“You finally decided to stop by,” Varric greeted when he reached the table. His smile was welcoming as he removed his reading glasses and gestured to take in the bar. “You see, Hawke, I told you. No one can resist the allure of cheap ale and bad tavern music. Elf! Welcome to my humble home.”

“You were right,” Fenris told Hawke. “It is a shithole.”

Hawke realized he was smiling. He said, “Have a seat?”

“If I must,” the elf said. Rather than choose the closest, which would put his back to the door, he moved around the table to take the empty place at Hawke’s side. His motive was no doubt the same as Hawke’s, when he had chosen his seat – the ability to see the entirety of the room, and not be snuck up on unaware. “I see you went for healing after all.”

“It was too risky to see to myself.”

“Right,” Varric said. “Or you know how awful your healing spells feel and you didn’t want to make yourself suffer. Elf – when you and Hawke were facing the gang, did the Big Guy have any witty quips? Maybe something like ‘ _making the world a better place – one enemy at a time!_ ’?”

Fenris blinked and peered at him. He said, slowly, “Not that I recall.”

“No worries,” Varric said. He put his glasses back on and picked up his pen. “I’ll come up with something.”

“No you won’t,” Hawke said. “Because I told you not to write that book.”

“You didn’t say not to write the book. You just did that thing with your eyebrows where it looks like you want to kill me. I assumed you had gas.” The dwarf didn’t even look up from the notes he was making. Still, Hawke glared for a moment before giving up and turning his attention back to Fenris.

“The dwarf and I were discussing the expedition,” he said.

“Before or after he decided to be so witty?” Fenris asked dryly.

Varric kept scratching out his notes. “What can I say – I’m here all week. Don’t forget to tip the waitress.”

“What - ?”

“It’s better not to ask,” Hawke said. “Are there any considerations you need for the expedition? Suggestions? Things we may not have thought of?” He offered the elf the list he and Varric had drawn up, but Fenris didn’t take it.

“If it’s something the dwarf hasn’t thought of, I doubt I’ll be much use.”

“To be fair, he’s a terrible dwarf.”

“Not arguing,” Varric said.

Fenris chuckled. Hawke liked the way one corner of his mouth lifted higher than the other.

There was a lull as Norah came to check on them. Hawke ordered a pitcher for the table, and since it was almost lunch time he added some sandwiches “on the dwarf’s tab.” Varric made a rude gesture, but didn’t argue. It was a tradeoff for the fact Hawke made him take his fair share on the jobs they did together. “You need it more than I do” was answered so often with “just take it – you can buy drinks later” that they didn’t even bother to pretend to have the conversation anymore. Hawke paid Varric for his help, Varric bought Hawke’s drinks. Everyone was happy.

Fenris hesitated, when the three of them were alone again. “Are you certain I’m the one you want for this task?” he asked.

“If you have reservations about going,” Hawke began. Fenris shook his head.

“It isn’t that. I know the Deep Roads are dangerous. I will certainly have my uses there. And it might be wise to disappear for a few weeks.”

“You’re the one that I want,” Hawke told him. “If we’re going down there, I’m taking a team I’m sure will survive. I want you at my side.”

“Then I shall be pleased to lend my blade to the cause.”

“Talk a little slower,” Varric said. “I’m not getting all of it. _Then I shall be pleased to lend my blade_ …”

Hawke took his pen. “I told you to stop taking notes.”

“And I told you I never listen.” Varric reached into his shirt and pulled out another. Hawke sighed.

“Do we have a date yet?” Fenris asked.

“For – departure?”

“Yes.”

Hawke ignored the way Varric chuckled. He shook his head. “We’re getting close,” he said. “A few more jobs. We need to visit the Rose today, talk to Ninette de Carrac’s…friend…”

“Andraste’s ass, Hawke, you can say _whore_ ,” Varric interrupted.

Hawke ignored him. “There’s also another matter,” he said. “Involving a young apostate…”

Fenris didn’t flinch. “Whatever you need,” he said.

Hawke nodded. “I appreciate that.”

“ – he said, his stern gaze softening like twin pools of liquid gold, the heart in his big burly chest picking up, running double time as the elf met his eyes.” Varric finished the sentence with a flourish and looked up. He seemed surprised to find them staring at him. “What?” he asked.

Hawke opened his mouth, but the sound of Fenris chuckling stopped whatever he had been about to say. Still, it took him a moment before he could look at the elf again. The last thing he wanted or needed was for his friends to make the elf feel uncomfortable with their jokes because they thought they saw something that wasn’t there. He wanted to help Fenris – just as he wanted to help Anders, and Isabela, and Merrill. That was the extent of it.

Anders arrived sometime after their food did.

“That’s my chair,” he told Fenris, when he found him next to Hawke. The elf only looked at him, chewed his sandwich, and kicked out the chair across the way.

“That one looks to be open,” he informed him, mouth full. He took another bite. Anders looked to Hawke, who only shrugged.

“Silly thing to argue about,” Hawke said. “Sit down.”

Anders frowned, but he sat.

“You find my shirt?” Hawke asked.

“Your shirt?”

“The flannel,” Hawke said. “Red. I think I left it over there after you healed me.”

“No,” Anders said slowly. “But I’ll keep an eye out for it.”

Hawke nodded. He took one more bite, then offered it to the other mage. “I’m full,” he lied. “Want it?”

Anders only hesitated a moment before taking it from him. There was more than half of it left but, as usual, he wolfed it down in a matter of seconds. Hawke wondered if he even chewed. He didn’t like the fact he was just as thin as he had been the day they met.

“Do you think the clinic can do without you this afternoon?” Hawke asked. “There’s work if you want it.”

“I want it,” Anders said. He grinned, and helped himself to Hawke’s drink. Hawke motioned Norah for more food.

“If we find de Carrac’s wife,” Fenris said, “What will you do? Will you make her return to her husband?”

“No,” Hawke said. He didn’t have to think about it. He wouldn’t have taken the job at all if they hadn’t been in such need. “Once we know what happened, I’ll have a better idea of what to tell him, though.”

“Huh,” Anders said.

“Huh, what?”

“Nothing. I just expected you’d make her go back.”

Hawke took his drink back from him. “Say what you mean.”

“You sent those apostates to the Circle a few weeks ago.”

Hawke rubbed the bridge of his nose. “If I find de Carrac’s wife practicing blood magic in a cave on Sundermount, I’ll reconsider my decision.”

“They were under duress.”

“I thought you dropped this a week ago. Are you really going to - ?”

“What about Merrill?” Anders asked.

“What about me?” Merrill asked, coming to join them at the table. She was trailed by Carver, who, by the state of him, had clearly been fighting again. The brothers locked eyes for a long tense moment before Carver finally dropped into a chair and reached for the pitcher of ale.

“Hawke and I were just talking about how he sends blood mages to the Circle,” Anders said.

“Oh!” she said brightly. “But I’m not the one possessed by a demon, now am I?”

“Justice isn’t a demon!” Anders said. “He’s - !”

“How about a compromise,” Fenris offered casually. “You _both_ go to the Circle.”

“You stay out of - !”

“Enough!” It was Aveline, and not Hawke, who interrupted the argument. She had slipped in, unnoticed, behind Merrill and Carver, and she returned Hawke’s look of gratitude with a nod. “This isn’t a conversation for the table,” she told them, and motioned, reminding them that they were in public. “Keep it up, and I’ll have you all hauled to a cell to cool your heels for a few nights.”

“For what?” Merrill asked, curious.

“Sod if I know – public drunkenness.”

“But we’re in a bar,” Merrill said. “Isn’t that rather silly, if you can get arrested for being drunk in a bar?”

“I assume once she drug you outside you would no longer be, in fact, in a bar,” Fenris said.

“You assume correct,” Aveline told him, with a warning look. He nodded, and returned to his sandwich.

Carver glanced at the paper Varric was furiously scribbling on. “’The new guard captain was a force of nature unto herself,’” he read. “’The fires of both temper and hair burning brighter than the core of a thousand suns. She stood towering over the lowly lot of her friends at the table, solid as an oak and twice as steady’ – what are you _writing_?”

Aveline’s ire turned to Hawke. “I thought you told him to stop writing that.”

“He never listens,” Hawke said.

“The Big Guy knows me too well,” Varric chuckled. “I always knew we would hit it off. My heart is all aflutter.”

“Ask your fluttering heart how much you’ll get written if I break your fingers.”

“I know you’re kidding,” Varric said, “But I’m wounded, all the same.” He put down his pen though, and tossed his reading glasses onto the table, then made a big show of stretching. He said, “It was time for a break anyway.”

“What are you lot doing here so early?” Isabela asked. Unlike the others, she approached from the back end of the Hanged Man, where the rooms were. Her hair was still mussed from bed, and she was finishing up the last laces on her corset as she approached. She spoke around the bandana she held between her teeth. “And why are you all so terribly noisy.”

Merrill laughed. “Did you sleep in again? It’s after noon, you know.”

“Your mistake is thinking I slept at all.” Isabela dropped her a suggestive wink even as she draped herself in Aveline’s lap. The redhead avoided a sloppy not-quite-morning kiss with a frown, and pushed her off to Merrill, who accepted her in her own lap with more giggles than complaints.

“Was it a very handsome man, then?” Merrill asked.

“Oh, kitten,” Isabela said, “I never said it was a _man_ at all.”

Hawke noticed how his brother frowned at them, and he cleared his throat. “Since you’re all here,” he said, “We should talk about the expedition.”

“Who’s all going?” Carver asked. “You, me, the dwarf - ?”

Hawke avoided the question. He said, “It should only take a few more weeks to get the money together, if jobs keep coming through like they have been. Aveline has to stay because of her work, so Varric is going to get her in touch with a few of his more savory contacts. Anyone who stays behind – if you need money while we’re gone, go to Aveline. She’ll make sure you can put food on the table.”

“Legally,” she added.

Hawke nodded. “Legally,” he agreed. “That means no killing. Nothing that could compromise her position.”

He looked at Varric pointedly. The dwarf shrugged. “I’ll have another chat with my people,” he said.

Hawke paused, considered. It felt strange, saying so much – having these people look to him as they did. He was used to his family depending on him, but in their case he just acted. He didn’t explain himself, didn’t plan.

More strange was realizing that he would worry about them while he was gone.

“What is it?” Merrill asked, noting his frown. “Hawke?”

He shook his head. He said, “If you do end up staying in Kirkwall – if you’ll keep an eye out for mother while I’m gone, keep Gamlen from getting his kneecaps broken. I’d…appreciate it.”

“Oh, Hawke,” Isabela said. “That’s sweet.”

“I expect to come back and find everything as I left it,” Hawke said, ignoring her. “Nobody dead or imprisoned or dragged off to the Circle – you understand?”

“Oh, I do like it when he’s assertive,” Isabela said. She gave a purposeful squirm atop her perch, and Merrill giggled again.

“That’s…that’s all I had to say,” Hawke finished.

“Ah, Hawke, I’m proud,” Varric said. “That was quite the speech.”

“It wasn’t a – Maker’s balls,” Hawke rose. “I’m leaving.”

Fenris rose with him, still licking his fingers. Anders scrambled up a moment later. Varric was the only one to take his time, putting his papers in order, putting the cap on his inkwell. He tapped the page as he finally rose. “Nobody messes with that,” Varric told the table. “This story is going to be my legacy.”

“You say that about all your stories,” Aveline said, and glanced at what he had written. She frowned.

“And one of these days, I’m going to be right.” Varric hoisted Bianca onto his back.

“ ‘Her thighs were supple, yet thick and strong – the kind of thighs that could crush a man’ – Varric!”

“I think Hawke’s in a hurry,” Varric said as she began to rise. “We’ll talk later!”

Outside, it was another warm day, bright and humid. Hawke waited until they were well away from the Hanged Man to speak.

“Have your people had any luck with - ?”

“Junior’s not in any trouble,” Varric promised. “Far as I can tell, he’s not in debt to anyone, there are no hits on him, and he’s got a reputation for paying up when he loses.”

Hawke frowned. “I don’t like it when he comes in looking like that.”

“What boy his age doesn’t get into a brawl once in a while?” the dwarf chuckled. “You can’t protect him every moment of the day. Look – don’t give me that look. I have two men on him. They’ll let me know if we need to intervene in anything.”

Hawke nodded, but he didn’t like it. It left a bitter taste in his mouth, having to sit back and watch his brother’s mistakes from a distance. He had hoped Gamlen would have been a good enough example to Carver of what not to do. He glanced back, found Fenris trailing the rest of the group by several steps, and stopped to wait for him to catch up. The elf looked startled.

“If you can’t keep up,” Anders began, but Fenris interrupted him.

“Did I hear correctly?” he asked. “You are an…abomination?”

Anders flushed, then scowled. “Why don’t you shout? I don’t think everyone heard you.”

“Do you see yourself as harmless, then? An abomination who would never hurt someone?”

“Like ripping someone’s heart out of his chest?”

Fenris blinked, mildly. He said. “I did that at the behest of no demon.”

“Right,” Anders said. “So we agree that it doesn’t take a demon for someone to be a vicious killer? Good.”

“Settle down,” Hawke warned them, as Varric rolled his eyes and chuckled.

“If you think they’re fun now,” the drwarf said, “Wait till we’re underground with them.”


	27. Altercation

Carver dreamed of Ostagar. Cold rain pelting his face, the howls of the wind mingling with the screams of dying men. He awoke covered in sweat and struggling for breath.

It took him a long time to catch his bearings. His heart was hammering, his vision swimming. The entire world felt wrong.

“You’re a grumpy pants today,” Merrill said when he took her out for breakfast. A pretentious little Orlesian bakery had opened in Hightown, and he wanted to do something special for her before he left. It was really out of the realm of what he thought they could afford, but he’d caught Leo going there a few times – and if Leo deserved to splurge, then so did Carver. Merrill looked bright and fresh and beautiful with flowers in her hair. When she took a drink from the frothy coffee thing she had chosen, it left her with a foamy while mustache. She giggled and licked it off and Carver thought, when the Deep Roads grew long and tortuous, he would enjoy remembering her like this.

“I’m not grumpy,” he told her. “I just don’t want to waste the time we had left listening to gossip from the alienage.”

“Oh, but it’s a funny story,” she said. “It’ll put a smile on your face – I promise.”

“Merrill,” he said. “We need to talk about something. You have to promise me you’ll take care of yourself while I’m gone. You can’t go wandering off into the bad parts of town.”

“But aren’t all the parts of Kirkwall bad?” she asked.

He shook his head, and he took both of her soft little hands into his own. He looked at her scarred little palms, ran his thumb over her skin. “Merrill,” he said, “I need you to take me seriously here.” He looked up to find her eyes on him, like twin mossy pools of water, and he held her gaze just as he held her hands. He said, “I’m not going to be here to protect you, and neither is Leo. You can’t go around like you usually do – getting lost in strange places, using your magic wherever you want…”

She frowned. “I’m not stupid, Carver,” she said.

“I’m not – I’m not calling you stupid,” he said. “I just want to be sure I’m coming back to find you free and in one piece.”

“Back?” she asked. “Where are you going?”

“ _Maker_ , you’re frustrating!” he said. He dropped her hands and sat back in his chair, running his hands through his hair. “The expedition! The Deep Roads? We’re leaving this afternoon.”

“You’re going on that?”

“I – you aren’t serious, are you?”

“Of course I’m serious,” she said. “I thought you were staying here with me.”

“Of course I’m not staying!”

“But Hawke said - ?”

“Leo and I – we don’t always get along. I get that. But my place is at my brother’s side. We’ve been working on this for months, Merrill. He can’t do it without me.”

Her brows knit. “I know, but - !”

“I’m going,” he told her. “And you’re going to have to accept that. Leo needs me.”

Merrill was still frowning at him, as if unconvinced. When their food arrived, Carver dug into his with, if not enthusiasm, at least determination. He didn’t go for this frou frou stuff, and sugary pastries for breakfast made him a little nauseated, but it was the last alone time he would get with Merrill. He didn’t know what the ration situation would be like in the Deep Roads, anyway – he might be wishing for pastries by then.

Merrill only picked at hers.

“Is something wrong with it?” Carver asked at last, and Merrill only shook he head. “If you don’t like it, we can send it back,” he offered. “Or go somewhere else.”

“No,” she said. “It’s fine. I just – well, I suppose I’m not feeling well. That’s all.”

He shouldn’t have brought up the expedition. Merrill was such a tender soul – he was sure she would worry, every moment they were gone. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It won’t be easy, but you’ll have to be strong.”

“I – what?”

“Do you want to help me pack after we got done here?”

“No,” she said. “No, I think I would rather just go home, if that’s all right.” She wiped her mouth on a napkin and rose. Carver began to do the same.

“I’ll walk you home,” he said. “Just let me settle the bill.”

“No – I don’t want you to. You should finish your meal. I can see myself out.”

He sat again, slowly, watching her as she made her way around tables and other diners, hurrying to the door. It meant something that she was upset about the idea of him leaving, but he’d thought she had more than enough time to get used to the idea.

Carver picked up his fork again. He decided he would never understand women.

\--

Hawke took the walk to Hightown early in the morning. The sun only just rising, the air had been cool and sharp and as fresh as it got in Kirkwall, and the light had a frail, watery quality to it.

In the square outside the Merchant’s Guild, Hawke tossed his pack down, right at the feet of one of the large statues of the Paragons. The stone eyes that stared down at him were cold, and seemed to come with a tremendous weight. _Do you know what you’re doing?_ they seemed to ask. He almost laughed.

Hawke combed his hands through his hair. He took a deep breath. By the time the others arrived, he would be calm, but for now he let himself feel his nerves, his doubts. It was a serious thing, going into the Deep Roads. He was putting every person he brought with him in danger. He was putting every person he left behind in danger.

He wondered, sometimes, if it wouldn’t be better if he just – turned himself in. Carver could support their mother much more easily if they didn’t have to worry about paying off the guards. So he had to ask himself – was he really willing to do this? Put everyone he loved, everyone he had come to care for, in danger? Purely out his own selfish need to stay free. He sent other mages to the Circle. Why did he think he was better than them? If anyone was hurt because of this, if anyone died…

He sat on the base of the statue, and he waited.

He wasn’t surprised that Fenris was the first to arrive, the elf slipping soundlessly into the square, the risen sun bright against his snowy white hair. His furtive movements weren’t meant for a bright new dawn, but they grew more confident once he spotted Hawke.  Fenris hesitated for only a moment before he squared his shoulders and approached. The elf did better when he knew he would have backup if trouble arose. Hawke was glad to have earned that bit of trust, however small it was.

The pack the elf carried was battered and thin. He sat next to Hawke without a word, and drew from the bag a dented thermos and a slightly smooshed breakfast sandwich wrapped in paper that was nearly transparent with grease – egg and bacon on brown bread. He offered it to Hawke without actually looking at Hawke, and after a moment Hawke took it from him, and tore it in half with his hands, and they ate together in that strange, companionable silence they were able to share. After, Fenris tilted his head back to catch the warmth of the sun, and Hawke caught the slightest trace of a smile on his lips.

He felt calmer after that.

Anders was the next to arrive. The merchants in the square were just setting up their shops, and the sun was already beginning to grow warm. He stopped short at the sight of them there at the base of the statue. His brows drew down, a frown pulled at his angular face.

“Am I late?” the other mage asked at last, and Hawke shook his head. The moment of peace shattered, and he found he felt tired.

He said, “No.”

“If I’d known we were meeting early,” Anders began.

Hawke interrupted. “We’re just waiting on the others.”

The other mage nodded, then drew closer. There wasn’t room for him to sit on Hawke’s other side, so he merely stood, staff in hand, pretending Fenris wasn’t there. Hawke noted that his boots were beginning to get threadbare, and his shirt had been patched. He hadn’t brought a pack. His long fingered hands played nervously against the shaft of his mage’s staff.

“Anders,” Hawke said, and his voice was more stern than he meant it. He tried to moderate it. “Is everything all right?”

“I just – can’t believe I agreed to do this. I hate the Deep Roads.”

Hawke frowned. “Do you want to change your mind?”

“No!” he said quickly. Then more calmly, “No. I’ll feel better knowing there’s someone with you who’s actually been there before. And you’ll need a good healer.”

“Your sacrifice is noted.”

Anders’s gaze flickered quickly to Fenris, then back to Hawke. Hawke saw the effort it took for him to smile, and he found he didn’t have the energy to worry about it right now.

“I’m sure we’ll all have a great time,” Anders said. “Maybe the Deep Roads have changed. Maybe it will be all puppies and rainbows down there. Who’s to say? If we all die horrible screaming deaths on an ogre’s blade, at least we will know that we tried.”

Hawke grunted and shook his head.

The market was in full swing nearby by the time Varric arrived. The dwarf strolled up looking as if he’d had a good night’s sleep and hadn’t stayed up worrying about whether or not this was actually something anyone had any place actually _doing_. He was whistling as he approached, twirling one of Bianca’s bolts between his fingers, a bounce in his step.

He said, “You lot got here early.”

“I wanted time to think,” Hawke told him.

Varric chuckled and shook his head. “I know what kind of _thinking_ you do, Big Guy. Let’s put a stop to that right now. Bartrand’s just paying for the rental carts now. Should be ready to set out in less than an hour.”

“Good,” Hawke said. He stood up. He stretched.

Aveline, Isabela, and Merrill were coming to see them off, though Aveline was on duty and couldn’t stay much longer than the time it took to grasp Hawke’s arm, and look him in the eye, and tell him sternly that he had better not get himself killed.

“I bought you a night at the Rose with my favorite girl as a going away present,” Isabela told him. “Then I remembered you don’t like girls, so I used the night on myself. Take my word, it was a _very_ memorable present.”

“Ah, the true test of friendship,” Fenris said, and sounded amused.

Isabela hugged Hawke, which surprised him. She gave him a hard squeeze, and backed away quickly.

“You will be careful, won’t you?” Merrill asked, and hugged him, too. Hawke didn’t know where all this sudden affection was coming from, and wasn’t quite sure how to respond to it. Merrill’s hug was a bit longer than Bela’s, but she too quickly backed up once it was over. She looked him directly in the eye and warned, “I will be very cross with you if you die.”

“Noted,” Hawke promised, a little stunned.

“Don’t look at me as if I don’t mean it, because I do.”

Hawke smiled. He said, again, “Noted.”

They heard Bartrand barking orders before he even arrived in the square. Puffed up on his authority, he seemed to take great pleasure in chewing out his hired laborers, in chewing his beards then splattering them with spittle when he took someone down for a wrong step. There were donkeys leading carts laden with supplies, and every laborer and mercenary was armed with a pickaxe, as well as their short swords and other weapons. He made them all line up, like soldiers under his command. Hawke folded his arms across his chest, and only fell in line when Varric elbowed him and said “We’ll never get gone if you don’t give him this. Trust me.”

Bartrand marched up and down before them importantly, chewing his beards and slapping a riding crop against his thigh. Hawke noted to himself that the dwarf’s boots had a little bit more heel on them than usual, and his jacket shoulders seemed to have been padded, making him just a little bit larger than the rest of the dwarves in their number. The smell of cheap cologne followed him like a dog in heat.

“We’ll chosen one of the hidden entrances!” Bartrand announced at last, voice ringing out in the square. Passerby not involved with the expedition glanced at him curiously, but continued their business. Hawke felt a little silly standing there front and center. “The Deep Roads there will be _nice_ and _virginal._ Ready for a good deflowering! Ha!” Bartrand made the appropriate hip motion, and kept it going a little too long when no one laughed at his joke. Hawke only felt his impatience grow.

“Now there’s an interesting image,” muttered Varric, at Hawke’s side.

“It’ll take a week for us to get to the depth we need, and there are bound to be leftover darkspawn from the Blight,” Bartrand continued importantly. “Bit risks – big rewards!”

“Are you waiting for us to cheer?” Hawke demanded. “I didn’t give up all that coin for nothing.”

Bartrand faltered, missed a step, then recovered. “Trust me – you will reap what you sow, partner. Now! Before we…wait. Who invited the old woman?”

Hawke turned with the rest of them. He spotted Carver first; his brother must have slipped into the line up during Bartrand’s speech. He was dressed in sturdy boots and work clothes, and had his pack slung across his shoulders with his sword, ready to go. Hawke hadn’t told him of his decision to leave him behind. In truth, he had hoped to slip away without his brother’s knowledge – to be far gone before Carver had even a chance to follow.

“Mother, no,” Carver groaned. “We talked about how important this is.”

Hawke followed his brother’s gaze, spotting Leandra as she came to a stop just short of the group Bartrand had gathered. She seemed to have run all the way from Lowtown; her cheeks were flush from exertion, her hair a mess. She tried to smooth it when she came to a stop, but when she spotted her eldest making his way through the crowd to reach her, all thought of her appearance seemed to vanish.

“I just want to know one thing,” she said, her attention on Hawke, completely. “Are you planning on taking Carver with you?”

Hawke set his jaw. He could feel Carver’s eyes on him, his brother jogging up to join him. He didn’t look at him, because he knew what he would see – Carver’s shoulder’s square, his posture confident, sure of his place here. Even, perhaps, excited.

Hawke said, “No. I really don’t need him along.”

“What!” Hawke ignored him as Carver rounded on him. “After a year in hiding, you think you can storm the roads yourself? Oh, you need me.”

“Carver, please!” their mother pled. Hawke did not look at his brother. He could feel his gaze – his shock and anger and hurt. “The Deep Roads are so dangerous! I couldn’t bear it if something happened…”

“You’re not taking everyone anyway,” Bartrand shouted, annoyed with the interruption. “You have to decide.”

“Carver is staying,” Hawke said. “I don’t want him.”

 “Oh,” Leandra breathed, “Thank the Maker!”

Carver’s nostril’s flared. “You’re just being daft,” he said hotly. “You need me down there!”

“We’ll be fine without you. Stay in Kirkwall.”

“So I get left behind to mind the chickens? I see how it is.”

Leandra was smiling now that she no longer had to care about her baby. Her hands were at her chest. She said, “Carver, your brother’s only doing what he thinks is best.”

“I guess I’ll have to do the same,” Carver told her. He looked at Hawke, his expression thunderous, and embarrassed, and hurt. He said, “All right, then, you bastard. I’ll stay. If you can look me in the bloody eye and tell me you honestly think you’ll be better off without me, I’ll stay.”

Hawke looked his brother in the eye. He kept his voice strong when he said, “Fenris is a stronger warrior than you, and I need people I don’t have to worry about protecting. I don’t want you.”

His brother’s fist connected, hard, with his jaw. Hawke’s hands came up and grabbed Carver by the front of his shirt – an automatic gesture. He looked in his eyes, and didn’t like how he saw himself reflected there. He should have been gentler. He should have explained himself better.

But Carver’s safety was more important than Carver’s love.

Hawke released him with a shove and Carver stumbled back. He lost his balance on a loose paving stone and fell, there in the square before all those onlookers. A few people laughed.

Hawke was already walking away.


	28. Aftermath

They watched the caravan depart, and then they went for a walk.

It was offensive, in a way – all the people about their normal business. Bartering with merchants, sharing gossip. _I don’t want him_ , his brother had said. That was all bloody well and good, but he hated that no one else had just had their life tilted and crushed.

“Well, you can’t go being a gloomy gus all afternoon,” Merrill told him. He knew she was trying to cheer him. He also knew he didn’t feel like being cheered. “You should try to stay on the cheery side of things, you know. Be grateful when you can. All of that frowning will make your face wrinkle up like an old prune.”

Carver reached without meaning to to finger the wrinkle forming between his eyes. When he caught himself, he dropped his hand with a grimace.

“What is it you expect me to be grateful for?” he demanded, and was too upset even to notice how pretty her answering smile was.

“Your brother loves you enough to want to keep you safe,” she said. “And he trusts you to look after your mother.”

“The exact same can be said of the _dog_.”

“Oh, all right,” Merrill said. “But does the dog get extra time to spend with a pretty girl who thinks he has a terribly cute smile?”

Carver pulled away when she reached to take his hand. “I’m not in the mood to be teased, Merrill. That – that horse’s ass would rather have his pet elf at his side than his own bloody brother. There’s nothing at all to be grateful for in that. He’s made himself clear, now. I see where he stands.”

“You don’t mean that,” she said. “You know he was only trying to keep you safe. He didn’t mean to be such a bully. He was scared, that’s all.”

Carver snorted. “If you believe that, then you don’t know my brother as well as you think you do.”

“I know protecting you and your mother is the most important thing in the world to him.”

“I’m not a bloody baby – I don’t need protecting!” He pulled away again when she again reached for him, and he rounded on her, there in the street where they had been walking. A part of him felt a twinge of guilt for his annoyance at her. A part of him felt a pang for her pretty smile, and the worry in her large eyes.

He shoved all that away. He wanted to be miserable. He had a right to it. He had done everything for his brother, hadn’t he? He deserved more than to be humiliated and pushed aside, left behind like a worthless weight.

“What does a silly little girl know about it anyway?” Carver demanded and Merrill let her hand drop.

They stared at each other, there on the street. Carver watched Merrill’s smile fall away, watched clouds pass over her normally sunny countenance. He was hurting, and he wanted to hurt back. A part of him knew that. He turned away and began to walk again, and was several paces away before it occurred to him she was no longer following.

He threw up his hands as he rounded on her. “Merrill…”

She smiled, without warmth. She said, “I see.”

“Look, don’t – don’t do that. I don’t deserve to be guilted over this. I’m the victim here!”

“Right,” she said. “Well, I don’t believe we have anything else to say to one another.”

“Right,” he echoed. “So that’s it? You’re going to walk away from me too?”

She nodded, her pretty eyes large and soft. “That’s right,” she said. “Unless you apologize to me right now.”

“I don’t have anything to apologize for.”

“All right,” she said.

Carver watched her walk away, his insides a twist of guilt and anger and hurt feelings. He had his pride. It wouldn’t have cost her a thing to admit he was right, to stop taking up for his bloody brother. Leo certainly didn’t care about her, so why should she take his side?

He didn’t go after her.

He made his way to the Rose. He needed a drink. A card game. Some women. He needed a place where he was appreciated, a place where he was the one who mattered, and not his bloody rutting bastard of a brother.

\--

The first cave on the Grey Warden maps was useless. Something had caused a collapse that would have taken hours to dig out, even with magic, and that, according to several of the dwarves, would have severely compromised the structural integrity of the cave system below.

“Unless you want to be crushed, we shouldn’t risk it.”

The second cave was flooded.

Bartrand’s face when they made the discovery was a dangerous shade of red. His patience seemed to be on the verge of shattering completely. While his hired crew took bets on the likelihood that the expedition would _ever_ actually reach the Deep Roads, Bartrand paced between the carts issuing unnecessary and often contradictory orders, and raging expletives on anyone he happened to make eye contact with.

When they found the final entrance perfectly serviceable, Bartrand laughed. He puffed himself up and praised himself for his hard work, dedication, and perseverance.

“You should all aspire to reach my heights!” he said, which earned amused glances from both Varric and Anders. “Now, get moving! And if I find the sorry sap responsible for suggesting those first few duds, I swear I’ll take a horsewhip to ‘em!”

Hawke crossed his arms. He said, “You can try it.”

Bartrand found something else to do.

Before entering the cave, the party stopped to light up their torches and lanterns. Fenris looked surprised when Hawke turned to ask if he minded them summoning a few mage lights.

“No,” he answered, slowly. “I don’t mind. But I…appreciate the asking.”

Hawke wanted to say more but the elf’s pretty eyes caught him off guard, and then the expedition was moving on, and the moment was gone.

As the party ventured into the cave, they were quickly surrounded by the dense, wet smell of earth. Mushrooms and lichens lined the damp cave walls, and the stone beneath their feet was uneven and slick. The light that filtered in from the cave mouth grew dimmer with each step, narrowing down to a pinprick, and then it was gone. With the weight of the stone pressing in on all sides, Hawke couldn’t help but to feel as if he had well and truly entered another world. Even when he had left Lothering the first time, striking out to find his path and his fortune on his own, Hawke’s home and his family had never felt quite so far out of reach.

He hoped they would be all right.

“Well boys,” Anders said, with an inordinate amount of false cheer, “We’re well and truly buggered now. Cheers to the Deep Roads!”

“Here, here!” Varric agreed. He raised his flask, drank, and passed it around. Though Anders drank the deepest and the longest, even Fenris shared a swallow. It was whiskey, oaky and dark. Hawke took a second swallow before passing it back.

Of course, they weren’t really in the Deep Roads. Not yet. Thus far there had been no sign they were even heading in the right direction – no warnings, no seals, no dwarven ruins. Were it not for the guidance of the warden maps, lit dutifully by the soft glow of their mage lights, they could just as easily have been in any number of the other caves that pockmarked Sundermount.

“I hope your information is good,” Hawke said, and he tried not to imagine them, lost and wandering, for the rest of their very short lives. The other mage gave a strained, odd-sounding laugh.

“It’s a little late to worry about that now,” Anders said. “But trust me, we are definitely headed in the right direction.”

Hawke frowned, and he watched him for a moment, concerned. He asked, “Are you sure you can handle this, Anders?” and the blond laughed again.

“It’s a little late to worry about that, too,” he said. “I’m fine. It’s just – I can feel them, you know. The darkspawn, below us. Like ants under my skin. I always swore to myself I would never come back to the Deep Roads. Not until my Calling, anyway.”

“It’s easy to forget you were a warden.”

“Speak for yourself.”

They walked for hours. For a while Varric tried to pry some warden secrets out of their companion, but Anders was reluctant to talk.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I tried,” he said. “Suffice it to say, there _is_ such a thing as too many nipples.”

“Well, you can’t not tell me now!”

Anders only shook his head.

Eventually, all conversation tapered off, even the most mundane topics leading to a lapse into silence as they continued deeper and deeper beneath the surface. The chilly cave began to warm.

Anders confirmed that they were not yet in any danger from darkspawn before they stopped for a break, yet even still the hirelings ate their lunches in slow nervous bites, their eyes rolling white and nervous in the flickering light of their torches.

“What if we never make it out again?” someone finally voiced the fear many of the humans felt, and several of the dwarves chuckled.

“Then I guess we’d be a damned confusing find for any future explorers,” Varric said. “I can read the headline now – _doomed caravan of idiots found, mere inches from freedom!”_

“No,” Anders said, darkly. “We’re definitely going in the right direction.”

He was right, of course. It couldn’t have been more than another two hours before actual signs of the Deep Roads began to appear along their path.

They were able to snuff out their torches and lanterns once they reached their first set of lava-lit ruins, the dwarven architecture arching high and impressive into a monstrous cavern. The warm air smelled of sulfur and charcoal. More than a few shoulders loosened in relief.

\--

_It was summer, and the sun hung pale and high in the sky above them. They needed rain; dust coated everything in a dense layer, and Leopold Hawke’s favorite fishing holes were drying up._

_Carver sat at his side in the cart, his stare sullen where it rested against the squirming wrinkled ball of mabari in his older brother’s lap. He let the puppy nip at his thumb as he sat there in his gloom._

_“Flower!” Bethany called, voice pitched high and sweet and sing-song. “Oh, Flower, look here, you! Hello!”_

_Leo groaned. “We aren’t really going to name him Flower, are we?”_

_“Your sister won the coin toss, fair and square,” Malcolm said. He didn’t bother to glance back at his children, bouncing along in the back of a cart that, just that morning, had been full of items from the farm to barter. Now barrels of hay and wool and moonshine had been replaced by sacks of flour, sugar, salt, and rice._

_Though he didn’t look back, he knew his children._

_“Stop pouting, Carver,” Malcolm said, his voice stern and full of warning, his patience growing thin. This was supposed to have been a fun day. “I told you before we left that there would be no controlling who that damned dog imprinted on.”_

_“I’m not pouting,” Carver insisted. His voice was thick. He sniffed._

_Malcolm still didn’t turn his attention away from the road. “Don’t cry, either,” he wanted. Carver stiffened, frowning, insulted._

_They were silent for a while, sweating. They knew their father’s tone of voice and did not want to test his fraying patience. Leo scratched the pup’s ears and he thought, guiltily, that he should say something – for Carver’s sake. He stayed quiet._

_Finally, little Carver could contain his indignation no longer._

_“It’s just – it isn’t fair!” he burst out at last._

_“Carver,” Malcolm warned, low, soft._

_“_ He _gets_ everything! _” Carver spat. His eyes were red and wet. Leo looked away first. Malcolm stopped the cart._

_\--_

Hawke was drenched in sweat, his bedroll tangled up around his legs. He struggled, fighting the bedroll as if it were some clinging beast until he could at last kick himself free. His heart was pounding, and he couldn’t have explained why.

“Bad dream?”

The voice surprised him. Hawke looked up in search of the eyes fixed on him – bright, elven, faintly glowing in the dim lighting. Fenris wore an unreadable expression. He was seated atop his bedroll with his sword across his lap and his whetstone in his hand, and though he had removed his armor, it remained within easy reach.

“No, not really,” Hawke told him, honestly. “I’m not sure what it was.”

He found it an unexpected challenge not to stare at Fenris. Though still fully clothed, the lack of armor lent an intriguing sense of vulnerability to him. The curve of his shoulder, the proud set of his back. His hands, elegant and bare, with tender palms marked to callously in lyrium, were particularly distracting.

Fenris was the first to look away, and Hawke, for a guilty, uncomfortable moment, feared that he had somehow sensed the strange turn of Hawke’s thoughts.

“It is a – a strange sensation, being here,” Fenris offered at last, breaking the long moment of their silence. “We are surrounded by danger on all sides, and yet for the first time in years I am wholly out of the reach of those who pursue me.”

“Is it difficult for you to try to sleep around all these strangers?” Hawke asked.

“Sleep is always difficult,” Fenris answered, with a kind of soft chuckle that made Hawke’s eyes fall again to those marked, expressive hands.

There was a puzzling sort of intimacy to the moment, the soft murmur of their voices, their silences punctuated by the snores of their companions.

Hawke admitted, “It’s difficult for me, too,” and Fenris regarded him in silence for another seemingly long stretch of time before he asked,

“Why?”

Hawke frowned, but the expression failed to put the elf off. He hadn’t exactly intended for it to, anyway, but he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to discuss the matter, either. He looked around their darkened campsite, the shadows of the Deep Roads looming broken and forgotten around them, and Fenris waited.

“Failure,” Hawke said at last.

“Failure?” Fenris repeated. His lips twitched. “The great Hawke lies awake at night worrying about…shortcomings?”

“Yes,” Hawke said.

Fenris, to his credit, didn’t laugh, though for a moment he looked as if he wanted to. At last he said, “People are responsible for their own actions, Hawke. You can’t protect everyone.”

Hawke frowned again. He rolled over, and tried to situate himself in his bedroll again. He said, “We should sleep,” he said, gruffly.

And somewhere behind him, he heard Fenris laugh.

 


	29. The First Week

“All right, I’ll admit that was impressive. You ready to go again? Go on and let it out.”

Carver’s vision was blurry and his head was pounding. A hand thumped him firmly on the back and another brought the bucket closer to his face. As if permission had been all he’d been waiting for, Carver threw up again – a noxious, chunky spray that missed more of the bucket than it hit.

“That’s all right,” the voice told him. “They’re used to cleaning up all sorts of foulness around here. They won’t mind.”

The world swam as Carver sat back hard against the couch’s plush back. He was grateful someone had had the foresight to draw the curtains over the room’s long windows.

It wasn’t the first time Carver had woken up sick and hungover at the Rose. It wasn’t even the first time this week – Carver had been spending more and more time there since his asshole brother had abandoned him. He was surprised to find himself in this particular room, however. Carver had only seen the Rose’s more expensive suites in passing, but it was unmistakable, even trashed as he was.

The chandelier had crashed to the ground. He vaguely remembered someone swinging from it, so he supposed that made sense. The bed’s large, plush mattress had been pulled from the frame and slashed to ribbons. Strangers and prostitutes were spread on the couches and ground and even the unfortunate mattress, all in varying degrees of undress.

Carver almost felt sorry for the idiot stuck with paying for all this.

He tried to remember the night before. Card games and liquor, his favorite girl’s warm ass on his lap. Appreciated, hailed, belonging –  

Shit. Was _he_ supposed to pay?

“Andraste’s tits, I’ve never seen anyone drink like that,” his companion said with a grin. A young man, blond, with most of his clothes on, thank the Maker. Carver did not share his brother’s tastes in other men. He caught the fumes coming off the bucket as the fellow put it down. “You, serah, are a force of nature we all should aspire to match.”

Card games and liquor and women. Carver had won, big. Enough to set his family up for a while. Enough to shove under Leo’s stupid nose when he got back with his stupid Deep Roads treasure. Carver had taken his money, and he – oh.

Why did he always have to be so bloody generous when he was drunk?

_Wine and women for all my new friends!_

He remembered, blearily, thinking he needed to celebrate. He remembered thinking it was more than enough to have a little fun with, and still take home to Mother. He remembered the gratitude of the other patrons, and how good it felt to be the hero for once. He remembered the way the girls smiled, and squirmed in his lap. He remembered -

Shit.

“I should get going,” Carver mumbled. His tongue felt fuzzy and thick in his mouth. It took him a moment to understand why he couldn’t get up. The girl draped across his lap made a whining sound of protested when he redeposited her with his helpful new friend.

\--

The good news, if one could call it that, was that Carver had already paid, and his winnings from the night before covered most of it, even with the repairs he was now responsible for.

The bad news was that he still owed about fifty sovereigns, and as of last count he had exactly two left to his name, hidden in the toe of his sock for emergencies.

He wandered for a while, after he left, trying to clear his head. Eventually Carver bought a greasy meat bun from a Lowtown food stall and he settled himself down in the doorway of a boarded up shop to eat it. For the first time he found himself appreciating the way the foundry fumes blocked out the sunlight down here.

Carver couldn’t go home – not until he had a plan. Leo had left them some gold to live off of while he was gone, but Carver had moved through it pretty quickly in the week since his brother had left. He had used the last little bit as seed money for last night’s game. If only he hadn’t gotten so _drunk_ …

It galled him, being broke again. Chaffed his Maker-damned pride. If he closed his eyes he could see Leo’s face – the way his brows would draw down in disappointment and anger, the way fury sparked his eyes from brown to gold. _You lost five hundred gold in one night? Do you know what that could have done for our family? I was right all along about you!_

Well, stuff Leopold Hawke. He didn’t know what it was like – Carver was his own man, and he needed his own life, and that included making his own mistakes. He won that money and it was his prerogative if he wanted to piss it all away. Leo would have been able to understand if he could have gotten himself laid, but he was too much of a tight-ass for anyone to want. It had been so long since Leo had had himself a bit of fun that he’d forgotten how. That was hardly Carver’s fault.

He didn’t care if the bloody bastard never came back from the Deep Roads. Carver would take care of the family just fine on his own.

Righteous indignation only made him feel better for a moment. It was harder to make decisions without his brother there to call the shots and take the blame.

First things first: Carver needed to pay off his debt to the Rose, and he had to keep himself and Mother fed while Leo was gone. Another week, at the least. Maybe more if he was lucky. He could easily win it back in another card game, but he wasn’t welcome back at the Rose until his debt was paid and the games at the Hanged Man never paid out as well. Anyway, sod if he was going there. Isabela would see through him in an instant if she caught him hanging around, and gladly prance back to his brother with all the dirty gossip she could find just the second he returned.

Well. It was only fifty gold. They had gotten up that much before, and it would be easy enough to do again. It wasn’t like Carver needed Leo’s bloody help. He would raise it on his own, and in less time, too.

As he rose, Carver felt a sour taste in his mouth that had nothing to do with rancid meat buns and morning sick-ups.

\--

Aveline sat behind her bloody big desk like she thought it was a throne, and she ignored him for the first few minutes after he sat down, scribbling something on a stack of papers with her brow furrowed, trying to look busy. When she finally put down her pen and sat back in her chair, she regarded Carver for a long time in silence.

“Well,” he said at last, “Hello to you, too.”

“Carver,” she said, and stopped, sighed.

“I’m not asking for the moons,” Carver said. “Just a job or two. You gave them to my brother all the time.”

“And we’ll get to that,” she said. “But there’s something I want to discuss with you first.”

He crossed his arms. He was already regretting coming here.

Aveline was silent for a moment longer before she plunged in. “I don’t like some of the people you’ve been associating with, Carver.”

Carver immediately sat up. He had told himself coming here that he was going to smile and take whatever he got, but he could feel the fight bubbling up inside him. “Talk to my brother when he gets back,” he said. It sounded defensive, even to him. “He’s the one in charge.”

“Maybe,” she said. “But I know you get around. This city’s full of people who are dead-set on ending badly. I don’t want to see you end up the same way.”

“Would asking you to stop spying on me help in the least?”

“No.”

“I have my own mother, you know. I don’t need more lectures.”

“I’m not trying to lecture you,” she said. “ _Or_ be your mother. I’m concerned about what Hawke will be returning to when he comes home.”

“It’s always about that bloody bastard, isn’t it?”

Aveline pursed her lips. She said, “No. This is about you.”

“Do you have work for me or not?”

Aveline shook her head, and Carver tightened his hold on the arm rests of his chair. The wood creaked under his grasp.

He said, “Has it ever occurred to you how much of this is your fault?”

There was some satisfaction to be found in the expression on the other warrior’s face. She said, “Excuse me?”

“We got you into the city, and you went off to your cushy job on the guard and forgot about us.”

“There is nothing _cushy_ about - !”

“You could have given us some of your wages, to help, but instead you watched us struggle.”

“Do you honestly think your bother would have - ?”

“At the very _least_ you could have helped me get into the guard. Do you know what it would have meant, to have one of us bringing in a paycheck every week?”

“Carver - !”

“But instead you did the opposite. You blacklisted me, so my brother and I had to go around, scraping and begging and licking every boot in Kirkwall just to raise the funds for that fucking expedition.”

Aveline’s voice was low, her face red, eyes furious. She said, “You have a funny way of viewing history.”

“Maybe so,” Carver answered. “But I know what’s right, and I know how you’re supposed to treat people who saved your life.”

“Your brother is like family to me,” she said.

“My brother’s in the sodding Deep Roads with an abomination and a murderous ex-slave. Is that what you wanted for your _family_?”

Aveline took a breath, but bit back whatever it was she had been about to say. Instead she said, “I think you should stop.”

“You’re right,” Carver agreed. “I’m done here.”

 Aveline spoke again as he rose, and her voice was cold, her words reluctant, dragged out of her. “There have been some problems with street gangs around the docks,” she said, and Carver stopped.

“I thought Leo and I cleared all those out.”

Aveline smiled without humor. “The thing about Kirkwall,” she said. “There’s never a shortage of trash. Do you want the job or not?”

Carver grimaced. He would rather tell her to go fuck herself than take her help now that he’d worked himself back up into a fury. Instead he said, “Give me the details.”

\--

As Carver sat fuming in Aveline’s office, listening to patrol reports and swearing to her, again and again, that he would give up the mission and go right to the templars at the first sign of active maleficarum within the gang, far below in the Deep Roads the expedition had met a sudden and unexpected stop – just short of the thaig it had been searching for.

“There’s been a collapse – the way forward is blocked.”

No one had asked Leo to be a part of the discussion, but as the scour came running back to report, the big mage moved forward to join Bartrand anyway, standing beside the dwarf with his big arms crossed and a thoughtful look on his face, as if he considered himself just as much a leader of the group as the dwarf.

While it was true they were supposed to be equal partners, Anders was certain that Bartrand had not meant to share authority along with the profits. The beady-eyed little slug took an extra step forward to keep Leo behind him, where he thought the mage belonged.

“What?” Bartrand demanded of the unfortunate dwarf who had made the report. “Is there some way around?”

The dwarf eyed him warily. Bartrand didn’t shy from fits of frustrated violence when things failed to go as he wanted them to. He answered with caution. “Not that I’ve been able to find. The side passages are too dangerous.”

He surely knew it was coming, but he failed to move fast enough. Bartrand punched him, hard, and the dwarf went down.

“Useless!” Bartrand said, red-faced and furious. He threw his hands in the air and paced for a moment, taking several steps away, then returning. “What am I paying you blighters for?” he snarled, then made a rude, dismissive gesture. “Set camp!” he ordered.

Most of the men broke to do so as quickly as possible, frightened of catching the dwarf’s eye, of earning more of his wrath. Anders moved to check on the unfortunate fellow who’d been struck, and pretended not to be listening in as Varric sidled up to Bartrand, hands tucked behind his back, swaying on his heels. He seemed to take an inordinate amount of pleasure out of these moments, when Bartrand lost his temper and showed, again, how little skill he had when it came to leading men.

“Problems, brother?” Varric asked, almost sing-song, and Bartrand rounded on him as if he wanted to punch him, too.

“Sodding Deep Roads!” the other dwarf snarled. “Who knows how long it’ll take to clear the path?”

Varric rocked on his heels again. He smiled, and spoke slowly, calmly, as if to a child. “Shall we not try to find a way around, instead?” he suggested. “Seems like the logical choice.”

Anders channeled some healing magic into the dwarf’s broken nose, and the man on the ground groaned. The others didn’t notice.

“You think I’m an idiot, Varric?” Bartrand demanded. “The scouts say the side passages are too dangerous!”

“I’ll deal with whatever we find if it means not sitting here.”

Leo’s voice was low and dangerous. It sent not-unpleasant shivers down Anders’s spine. He glanced back to find the other mage just as he had been before – arms crossed, face frowning – strong and confident and dependable. The low light was flattering against the hard chisel of his face. Even sensing what it was that lurked down those side pathways, Anders was tempted to believe Leopold Hawke would, indeed, be able to deal with it.

Varric seemed to think so as well. “We’ll take a look,” he offered. “If we come running back, screaming, you’ll know staying put was the right decision.”

“Fine, fine!” Bartrand said. “Find a way around. Just do it quickly.”

Anders met Leo’s eyes. He tried to smile. “This is why I left the Wardens,” he said. “I hate the blighted Deep Roads.”

“Just get ready,” Leo said.

He watched him pace away, and frowned at the way Fenris followed him, like a lithe little elven shadow. He was always _there,_ right at Hawke’s side, where it was most inconvenient, thwarting any and all attempts to get him alone. Anders had even heard them, several nights, sitting up by the fire with their heads tilted toward one another, their voices low as they talked well into whatever passed for the night around here. He didn’t know why Hawke didn’t tell the mage-hating little murderer to sod off.

Anders shook the thought off after a moment, and turned his attention back to his patient. The dwarf still looked a little cross-eyed, but he would be fine.

“You’ll need to eat something,” Anders advised, helping him to his feet. He watched the fellow totter off to the carts before he reluctantly turned to join the others. There would be darkspawn, and Anders hated fighting bloody darkspawn. To think that he could have been in the clinic right now, curled up with a book and a mug of tea - !

Leo looked back and caught his eye. He motioned for Anders to join them.

The Deep Roads weren’t _all_ bad.

 


	30. Into the Pit

The street gangs at the docks had two maleficarum, because of course they did, because that was just the kind of shit luck Carver had.

Crouched up in the rafters of the warehouse the gang called home, Carver watched them working below as he weighed his options. Things had been simpler when Leo had been around – they went in, smashed things up, and got paid. Easy. It should have still worked that way – except without Leo, no one would agree to work with him.

Well, he hadn’t asked Aveline, but he wasn’t about to go back to her with his tail tucked between his legs, admitting he needed help. He could have managed with just Merrill and Isabela, but Merrill never seemed to be home when he came around, and Isabela just laughed when he brought up the job offer. The few contacts he had left from Meeran’s gang wouldn’t have anything to do with him, either, so there wasn’t even any hope for that option.

So, fine. Carver was on his own. He liked it better that way, anyway. Meant he didn’t have to split the profits.

But it also meant he had to work smart if he wanted to get out alive.

The gang had maleficarum. All right. Carver wasn’t afraid of mages. He had plenty of experience with their kind, didn’t he? Hard to be afraid of mages when you knew their shit stank just as bad as any other man’s.

So – how to handle it, then? It was a smaller gang than Meeran’s had been, but Carver could still get overwhelmed if he went charging in on his own. He had counted two guys outside and at least a dozen inside, and he was good, but those weren’t very encouraging odds.

If he brought the templars in, Aveline might decide he didn’t need paying. She could have done as much on her own, after all, and it seemed like the kind of thing she would do just to be petty. Anyway, there was a reward for getting blood mages off the streets, and if Carver managed to subdue two maleficarum all on his own he might manage to get paid twice – from the guard _and_ the templars – and he’d be a bloody hero, to boot. Somebody would want to buy his drinks at the Hanged Man, anyway.

The two he deemed to be the leaders were talking to one another, gesturing over a crate that was marked fish but likely had something illegal inside. The rest of the gang was bringing more crates in, and the two mages were doing something hand-wavey over them. They were all preoccupied, but Carver was still careful as he edged his way along the beam, back to the window he had first crawled through. It was a warm day, and the hot fishy sea air hit him like a slap in the face.

Mindful of the rotting patches on the warehouse roof, Carver kept his body low as he crossed back to the ladder. On a bright clear day like this, he would be easy to pick up against the bright blue of the sky should anyone care to look, and it was a relief when he reached the ladder without hearing an outcry.

His luck needed to hold off its usual mess for just a little longer – just enough for him to make a plan, to figure out where he went from here. He knew Leo would have known what to do. Carver was almost tempted to miss him.

Back on the ground in the filthy alley between warehouses, Carver briefly entertained thoughts on his reunion with his brother when Leo did return. Leo would have whatever Deep Roads fortunes he had found, sure, and Carver had no doubt everyone would fuss over him like some bleeding king, but Carver – Carver would have his own victories. After this score, he’d be able to hold his head up, to humbly say – look, this is what I did without you. I succeeded. I survived.

It would be satisfying to watch the change that would come over the way his brother looked at him. To see the moment where he finally became a man in Leopold Hawke’s eyes.

They would go out for drinks and things would change. Maybe not all at once. Maybe it would happen slowly. But Carver –

Exiting the alley, Carver’s thoughts preoccupied him, and he didn’t stop to see if his way was clear. He knew his mistake almost immediately – one of the gang’s guards, lounging indolently near the entrance to the warehouse, raised an alarm.

“Oy, what are you doing over there?” the man demanded. Carver tensed as the guard and his companion approached. He hadn’t brought his sword with him, but he felt confident he could take two men without one, and arm himself off what they carried. Even still, if he had to fight, the whole warehouse was bound to find out he was up to no good, and he hadn’t yet figured out how he was going to handle them all en masse.

The other guard looked strangely familiar. Something nagged at Carver’s memory as the fellow frowned at him.

“I told you – recruiting is at the end of the week,” the second guard said, and grabbed Carver by his sword arm before he could answer. “Abe, this’s one of the new ones I’ve been scouting.”

“Can’t be too bright if he can’t follow simple instructions.”

“He’s all right. Used to work for Meeran.”

“Now I _know_ he’s not too bright.”

The second guard laughed. He squeezed Carver’s arm, but if he was afraid the young Fereldan would speak up and blurt something unfortunate, he needn’t have worried. Slack jawed and confused, Carver had absolutely no clue what was going on.

“Well, since you’re already here, I might as well show you around,” the friendly guard said. “Starting with the front door. Can’t go skulking about places you weren’t invited, can we? Come on, this way.”

Carver had little choice but to follow – up the steps and back into the warehouse, surrounded by the gloom and wet, moldy smell. It was not a well maintained warehouse, and the poorly ventilated space felt suddenly crushing.

“This is where you get equipment,” the guard said as he led him into a room to the right, where racks of blades and tabled full of armor waited. The bloody gang looked like it was preparing for war.

Carver was still goggling when the guard locked the door behind them.

“Thank the Maker I got you alone so easily,” the guard said. Carver recovered from his surprise enough to lift his hands defensively.

“I’m seeing someone,” he said. “Well, I think. Kind of.”

“You’re - ? No, Carver. It’s me.”

Carver squinted at the other man. Once again he felt that strange familiarity he couldn’t place. He couldn’t have met the fellow before, surely.

“Me who?” Carver frowned.

“Todric,” the guard said. “From the Rose.”

Carver was on the verge of protesting that he definitely did not know any men from the Rose when his memory finally decided to participate in the conversation. Todric was one of the beneficiaries of Carver’s last wild night there – a lucky guest of the party that drunk Carver had decided to host without permission from sober Carver. In fact, he was the very same fellow who had been there when Carver awoke the next morning – the blond who had helped him throw up.

“You work the docks?” Carver asked.

“Not exactly,” Todric answered. “Look, because I think you’re a decent guy, I wanted to give you fair warning. Whatever business you think you have here, drop it and get out now.”

“Why should I do that?” Carver demanded. “I’m not afraid - !”

“I’m a templar,” Todric said, motioning for him to keep it down. “I’ve been working this place for months – we’re going to hit it. Today.”

“Of all the - ! _I’m_ working this gang!”

“Huh,” Todric said, in such a way that implied doubt. He looked Carver over and the warrior felt his blood beginning to boil.

“You might have been here a few months, but I’ve been working on this gang for a year,” Carver lied. “I’m under official sanction from the guard. Tell your men to back down.”

Todric only shook his head. “As much as I’d like to see what you think it is you’re going to do alone against a roomful of armed men and two maleficarum, I’m afraid it’s too late,” he said. “These blood mages are going to be made tranquil tonight, and anyone who even looks like they were aiding and abetting them is getting the hangman’s noose. You don’t want to be caught here when it happens – consider the warning a thank you for the other night.”

“I don’t need a thank you,” Carver said. “I need you to back off my job!” Carver wanted to argue further – Maker, did he want to argue further – but as he opened his mouth to continue an explosion suddenly shook the building.

Todric’s brows drew down in concern. “They’re early,” he said, and, turning, he pulled a sword from one of the racks on the wall. He said, “Try to lay low and escape in the confusion. No one who finds you here is going to bother asking questions first. And with some of the rumors going around about that brother of yours…well, just get out. Fast.”

“This is _my_ job!” Carver shouted after him, as Todric slipped out the door. Carver threw up his hands, red with fury, and he paced the confines of the room like a caged animal as he tried to decide what to do.

He could hear shouting outside – ring of metal on metal, familiar pop and fizz of magic. Finally, he moved.

Carver grabbed a broadsword off the wall and a leather helmet from one of the tables, and he threw open the door.

The hall was foggy with the after-effects of magic. It tickled his nose, and when he sneezed the ill-fitting helmet fell down over his eyes. Carver pushed it back impatiently as he jogged down the hall to the warehouse’s main room, where the sounds of fighting were coming from.

It didn’t take Carver long to see that he had underestimated the gang’s numbers – and so had the templars. They were outnumbered almost two to a man, and from the floor hatch where the spare fighters had emerged there now rose a line of skeletal soldiers, rotting armor clacking together around dark bones long left buried in Kirkwall’s hidden vaults. Tevinter leftovers, these, ancient and straining to contain the demons that animated them.

Carver looked for the blood mages he had picked out earlier. One lay dead; the other was busy with the templars. He felt a sinking sudden surety – there had to be at least one more mage. Neither of these two could have been capable of raising the skeletons when they were both so otherwise occupied.

Carver checked his grip on his sword, and he charged into the fray.

He hit the line of skeletons with a roar. All of his anger, his wounded pride, his hurt feelings – they bubbled up inside him, right to the surface, and spilled over, volcanic, with the first mighty swing of his borrowed broadsword. Not just his annoyance at Todric and the templars for barging in on his job, but everything else, too – everything he’d been trying to keep to himself about his brother’s abandonment, and Merrill’s strange behavior, and the way Aveline had treated him in her office, and losing so much money at the Rose.

It felt good to finally have a way to let it out. Oh, yes. Carver used it because it was all he had. The familiar sword forms, self-taught, hard won – the burn of oxygen in his lungs – the resistance when sword met armor or bone. He cleaved his way through the skeletons, pushed them back.

Somewhere in the midst of it all, he lost his helmet. It was just as well; hats weren’t really his thing, anyway, and worrying about safety only slowed a body down.

Leopold Hawke refused to turn his anger to violence, but for Carver Hawke, the practice was just peachy. It was cathartic, in its way. Sweat in his eyes, strain in his muscles, sword in his hand –

In the army, Carver had been respected, trusted, equal to any other man. At Ostagar, he made a name for himself in his unit – and sometimes he wondered, truly, if he wouldn’t have been better for him to continue on to Denerim with the others, instead of heading home. He could have helped the Wardens stop the Blight! And his own brother didn’t think he could handle the Deep Roads? He gave up everything for his family and what had he gotten in return? Carver nudged the wound, prodded it, burst it open. He let it spill out within him, violent and pulsing and red.

Carver cut his way through the skeletons, and when he reached the now-open hatch, he swung his way down the ladder without hesitation.

Below, it was damp and cool, with the grave-like press of earthen walls, and floor, and ceiling. Carver had expected ply boards, or Tevinter ruins, but the tunnel was hand-dug, and in the light from the world above, he could just make out the sight of individual finger-marks.

It felt too much as if someone had attempted to claw their way out.

Carver shuddered, but he plunged ahead anyway.

The darkness swallowed him in moments.


	31. Night in the Deep Roads

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not a flattering chapter for Anders. I'm sorry.

"I’m not trying to start something,” Anders insisted, again. “I’m just curious. It’s hard for me to understand what the two of you could possibly have to talk about night after night after night. You’re certainly a stronger man than I – five minutes with him and I start seeing red.” Anders made himself laugh, but Leo did nothing to indicate he was even listening.

The big man walked silently at his side, and the Deep Roads pressed in, dark and menacing, all around them. It was hard to tell if the tension Leo carried in his shoulders and jaw was because he was watching for danger, or if it meant Anders really needed to shut up.

Their party had only made about half a day’s progress from the base camp when they stumbled across Bodahn’s son, Sandal, surrounded by darkspawn corpses and one very surprised-looking ogre.

The eerie display notwithstanding, Leo hadn’t been willing to let the boy wander back alone, so he instructed the others to set up camp and wait there for him while he walked the lad back to his worried da himself.

“Whatever he’s done here, the area should be safe – at least for one night,” Leo said, when Varric questioned the wisdom of trying to sleep in such a place.

It took some arguing on Anders’s part to convince Leo to let him tag along, but the healer simply hadn’t been willing to pass up the chance to get the other mage alone – not after all this time stuck with the others, and all the nights when he laid awake in his bedroll, tormented by the low, warm murmur of voices from Leo and Fenris.

Things were not going as Anders had hoped, though. Anders knew that he should quit while he was ahead, but from the moment they’d dropped Sandal off and turned back around it seemed he was incapable of not running his mouth. He didn’t like the bitter, suspicious tone that kept creeping into his voice, and he didn’t like the way Leo had stopped answering him miles ago, but he could no more stop himself than he could change the tides.

He was jealous.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Anders continued. “I understand why you brought him. He has his uses. I just think it’s a shame no one in Tevinter ever thought to sew his mouth shut.”

“Anders,” Leo said, and his voice was hard and deadly quiet. It sent a not-unpleasant shiver down Anders’s spine before jealousy flashed, hot and sudden, into anger.

“You aren’t going to defend him?” Anders asked. “He wants to kill all mages!”

Leo was cold in the face of Anders’s heat. He said, “He does not.”

“Well, he wants to see us all locked up, anyway.”

“He wants reasonable oversight,” Leo said. “I do, too.”

“There is no reasoning with templars!”

Anders was several steps away before he realized Leo had stopped. He swung back to face him, braced for battle. He expected the usual – Leo with his jaw set and his fists clenched, his amber eyes ablaze.

Instead the big mage was turned partially away from Anders, rubbing the bridge of his nose. In the glow of their mage lights, he looked suddenly old, and tired.

“Maker’s ass, man, why does everything have to be a fight with you?” Leo asked.

“Some things are worth fighting for.”

Leo dropped his hand and he looked at him for what felt like a very long time. Finally, he said, “I’m not doing this, Anders.”

“Doing what?”

Leo stared at him. His big shoulders looked so heavt, and his face – Anders had never seen such an expression from the other mage before.

Leo shook his head and he said, “Forget it.” He began to walk again, briskly, brushing past, and Anders had to hurry to keep up.

“I know – I understand,” Anders said. “Your father conditioned you to – “

“I am _not_ getting into a discussion about my father.”

“If you could only understand how lucky you’ve been! If you knew what it feels like to be a mage in the Circle – stripped of all freedom and autotomy, everything you do and say and think constantly under scrutiny - !”

“I don’t care about the mages in the tower!” Leo said, rounding on him.

Anders stopped, abruptly, staring.

Leo gestured almost violently to the path before him. “My sister died because I didn’t get her out of Lothering soon enough,” he said. “My brother thinks I’m a bleeding monster. My mother is living in a hovel because I can’t afford to keep us fed _and_ pay off the templars – and she’s living every day in constant danger of being arrested for harboring a dangerous apostate!”

“Hawke,” Anders began.

“If I was any sort of decent I would have turned myself in ages ago,” Leo continued on as if Anders hadn’t spoken, moving closer to the other mage. As intimidating as he was in his amber-eyed fury, he was also breathtaking. Angry as he was, a warm curl of reckless excitement curled deep in Anders’s belly. “But, what then?” Leo demanded. “Would Carver keep them safe and fed? He’d little better than Gamlen these days.”

“The mages,” Anders began.

“ _Fuck_ the mages!” Leo roared, and that coal of excitement pulsed and flared, even as Justice stirred deep within. “The _only_ thing in this world I care about is keeping my family safe – whatever that means. It’s all on me. I dragged you lot down here – I might get you all killed – and I don’t _care_. Not if it gets me what I want. Do you understand that?”

“You’re lying,” Anders realized, and Leo flinched. “You do care. Is that why you’ve been so on edge, then? You know you don’t have to go to Fenris. You can talk to _me_.”

“I’m so _tired_ ,” Leo said, his voice dropping.

Anders’s heart was hammering. He felt like this was the Leo he’d been waiting to meet – a man who he knew existed, somewhere under it all. A man who cared, who could be brought around to the Cause in time. Leo – vulnerable, honest, without the shield of his dark looks and heavy silences.

Anders pushed forward – bold, reckless, and sudden. He pressed his mouth to Leo’s.

It was over before it had ever really started. The barest, softest brush of lips, and Hawke was pulling away. His hands were like vices on Anders’s arms, preventing him from following. When he spoke, he was firm.

“No, Anders,” he said. “We talked about this.”

“But – so it’s just me, then?”

“It’s not about you,” Leo said. “I just don’t – “

“Don’t lie to me,” Anders pulled away, hard. He could feel that part of him that was Justice, stirring more strongly now in response to his emotions. He shoved it down and ignored it. Leo dropped his hands. He looked stunned and, somehow, hurt.

“When have I lied to you?”

“Telling me you don’t want anyone – not interested, not looking – when we both know you’d fuck that elf in a heartbeat?”

“Fenris?” Leo frowned. “Anders, I have no intention of fucking Fenris.”

“Right.”

“We’re friends,” he insisted, growing stern again, frowning, the visage of the man, _Hawke,_ once again replacing the hope that Leo represented. Suddenly _Hawke_ seemed like a barrier between them. He said, “Neither of us is looking for anything more.”

“You flirted with him.”

“Your interest doesn’t obligate me to return the favor. Nor to avoid flirting with someone else.”

Anders opened his mouth, then closed it. It stung, the way Leo – no, _Hawke_ – was looking at him.

Finally he voiced the thing that had been bothering him since the night they met that damned elf.

“And what if things change?” Anders asked. “What if you decide you do want someone?”

“Then we’ll figure it out then.”

Hawke didn’t even look like the same man to Anders. He was hard, yes, that was to be expected, but suddenly he seemed so distant, too.

He said, “I told you I would let you know if I decided I was interested in anyone. That hasn’t changed.”

“Yes, but I thought you would choose me.”

“I haven’t chosen anyone,” Hawke said.

\--

However time was reckoned so deep underground, it felt late as Hawke and Anders returned from their errand.

They had lost more than half a day by stopping and backtracking so soon, and Hawke’s exhaustion had sunken down deep into his bones. He felt hollowed out, empty and worn.

He also felt alone. He and Anders hadn’t spoken in hours.

Fenris and Varric had set up the camp as he’d asked, and their fire burned low and warm. Varric must have shot a nug, for two rather blackened skewers of meat rested near the blaze. It meant another day their rations would last, should anything happen to further delay their return to the surface.

There was no sign that there had been any trouble while they’d been away. When they arrived, Varric was on watch, Bianca in his lap, his eyes on the shadows. Fenris was peaceful, curled in his pallet.

“They don’t look like much, but you’ll thank me for burning them,” Varric said, as Hawke eyed the meat. Anders passed them without a word or even so much as a glance at the meal, and when Varric looked at him in question, Hawke merely shook his head.

Hawke was only halfway through chewing through his tough portion of the meat, contemplating giving up all together, when Varric woke Fenris for his turn to keep watch, and went to lay himself down in his pallet. The elf, still tired, rubbed his eyes and struggled to wake, but he chuckled when he saw Hawke fighting with the meat.

“Ah, your gourmet dinner,” he said, a yawn breaking his words as he came to join Hawke at the fire.

Hawke hadn’t spoken much, himself, since returning, but something in him loosened at the elf’s approach. “I’m beginning to suspect the damned dwarf is playing a joke on me.”

“I heard that,” Varric said, from his pallet.

Fenris sat, his sword across his knees and a whetstone in hand. He shook his head. “Sadly, that is not the case. He claimed that for a _delicacy_ like nug, the best practice is always to obliterate the flavor as much as possible.”

Hawke, with difficulty, tore off another chunk. His jaw was starting to get sore from chewing. He said, “Noted.”

Fenris yawned again, but he seemed amused. It was strange how much more at ease he seemed here in the Deep Roads – surrounded by darkspawn and unspeakable horror, but safe from the eyes of those who pursued him. In moments the sound of the whetstone against Fenris’s blade joined the pop and hiss of the fire.

“Everything went smoothly while I was away, I guess?” Hawke asked.

“Not at all. I lost half my rations to Varric at cards.”

“He cheats, you know.”

“So do I.”

Hawke snorted, a sound as close to a laugh as he could manage. His shoulders still felt tight and painful with tension, but it was good to be back at the camp. He hadn’t liked splitting the team.

“If you’re nice to me, maybe I’ll win them back for you,” Hawke said. He wasn’t looking, but he knew when Fenris smiled. He could hear it in his voice as he replied.

“You’re worse at cards than I am.”

Hawke finally gave up on the meat. His back popped when he stretched.

Fenris said, “You should rest while you can. It certainly didn’t take the others long to pass out.”

“How do they do that?” Hawke asked. The elf lifted his shoulder in a shrug.

“How did your side of things go?” Fenris asked, watching him. It was Hawke’s turn to shrug. He didn’t want to talk about it, and the reminder had him tensing up all over again.

Fenris didn’t press the matter.


	32. Maleficarum

Carver Hawke did not need his damned brother to take down a mark.

But fuck if he wouldn’t mind a mage light or two.

The hand-dug earthen tunnel grew pitch black the farther Carver ventured from the hatch. The walls felt moist, and the air was hot. There was dark magic at work, and Carver knew it. He didn’t need magic powers of his own to feel the malevolence, the danger. It was a hot breath at the back of his neck, the feel of eyes on the back of his skull. The walls seemed to breathe around him, like the ribcage of a giant animal.  

None of it was real. This was not the kind of magic Leo used, but Carver knew it for what it was, and he did his best to shake it off. His teeth were chattering. His breath was coming shorter. Fear was creeping over him, like cold, skeletal fingers walking their way down his spine.

Carver kept going, and after three or four steps, those fingers dug in – hard, something piercing the soft flesh of his side and twisting, pulling. It wrenched a gasp from him. His knees hit the ground. It pulsed under his hands. He thought he heard laughter.

Carver gave himself a moment. He closed his eyes, and colors danced across his vision, bright with pain. His head swam. Slowly, painfully, he picked himself back up. It wasn’t real, he told himself, even as the pain twisted in his side once again, as he felt the hot wash of blood burning its way down his side, wetting his tunic. Sweat, maybe. It wasn’t real. He used the wall to keep himself vertical.

The further Carver went, the worse it grew. The pain pulsed like a heartbeat. The skeletal fingers scraped across his back, then plunged in again, near his second rib. He screamed, and something answered. He heard things crawling in the dark. A touch ghosted over his hair, his arm. Breath in his ear. His hands wanted to shake. The darkness seemed even darker, all-consuming, eternal.

Carver kept walking.

He lost track of time. He had been here for hours. Days. Weeks. Years. Reality focused down to the darkness, and the pain, and nothing else.

With each step Carver took, the urge to turn back grew stronger. The heat of the tunnel had become the icy cold of the grave. His fingers and toes were getting numb. The pain would end if he turned away, he knew. Somewhere behind him was warmth, light, people. Somewhere back there there was softness, and an end to pain. Merrill, singing as she watered her flowers. Ale at the Hanged Man. The satisfaction of punching Leo in his big stupid face.

Now he could feel those sharp, merciless fingers digging into his belly again, as if they would pull out his insides and use them to decorate the walls. He was breathless with pain, stumbling. It would all end if he would just turn back – back to the light and the warmth. The templars had ways to silence these spells. The templars could handle this. This wasn’t his job. It wasn’t worth the pay. If he would just turn back –

Somewhere in the haze of pain and fear, Carver was certain that if he went any way other than forward he would somehow confuse his path, get lost here, in the endless cold and impenetrable darkness, never to emerge again. Leo would come back from the Deep Roads with pockets full of money, and no one would ever know what had happened to Carver. Maybe they would be happier that way.  They would say Carver skipped town because of his debts, or met a bad end somewhere in the sewers. He’d be just another disappointment. Like always. Leo could shake it off. Keep being the favorite, the success. Put mother up in her estate with untold riches. Merrill would have Isabela. They were probably already sleeping together anyway, laughing at Carver’s little crush. They probably wouldn’t even miss him. No one would.

Voices buzzed in Carver’s ear like millions of tiny ants, and he shook his head violently to clear it, and they laughed. They would all laugh. Leo – mother – Merrill - what did he think he was doing? No one would come looking.

“We’re much better off now!” Leo would laugh. Carver could hear him.

Carver kept going.

Somewhere miles below him, fucking Leopold Hawke was probably at that very moment fighting darkspawn, or corpses, or giant spiders. Leo hated spiders. Maker, the man was terrified of them. Carver remembered when they had been children, and he had found a spider in the garden – a great big one, hairy, carrying eggs on her back. Carver – the memory seemed hard to focus on – Carver had gathered her up carefully, using a piece of paper. He had put her on Leo’s shoulder. When Leo killed her, the eggsack broke, and tiny spiders went _everywhere_ , skittering, covering him.

Leo had screamed like a five-year-old girl.

Carver forced a grin. He felt a little warmer. He kept walking.

The air seemed to thicken around him. Something scraped his cheek, tore through his hair. It felt as if hands were trying to pull him back, turn him away. It felt as if his feet weighed a hundred pounds. His sword was like a boulder against his back. He dragged his feet forward, forcing his way further and something screamed in frustration.

Carver just had time to register that he had come out into a large, circular cavern, dimly lit by the green, eerie lights of dozens of black candles. He drew his sword, just as something blindingly bright came screeching toward his head.

He threw himself sideways, desperate, losing his sword as he rolled, hitting his shoulder against the wall, and the fireball exploded against the tunnel entrance. Heat seared the side of his face. He felt his hair crackle. Spots dotted his vision.

Carver had only a moment to decide what to do. He didn’t have a plan, or know what he was up against, but the one thing he was sure of was that he had to keep moving. Blindly, he grabbed his sword and launched himself back to his feet, narrowly missing another fireball. His eyes struggled to adjust, the room around him coming to him in a series of blurry flashes – the candles. The altar. The pile of bodies. Blood.

Bones crunched under his feet as he ran. He heard the howls of demons as they began to take form and he knew, once they were here, he was done for. He saw the dark, hooded form of the mage, the pale hands that waved in the air, fingers knobby and black from dried, caked blood.

Invisible hands tore at his hair. Invisible blades cut at his skin. Those fingers from the tunnel dug into his intestines. Carver fought his way forward as if struggling against a hurricane, each step its own tiny war, the muscles of his thighs aching – _everything_ aching. The howls grew louder, deafening. The bones slid under his feet. The demons were almost through - !

When he thrust his sword through the mage’s chest, the howling stopped, the summoning incomplete. The silence pounded, painfully, in his ears. He stumbled and he fell.

Carver thought he heard voices, and he began to come back to himself slowly, bit by bit, like drips of water slowly filling a glass.

He sat on a mountain of bones, with his back to the altar, and everything hurt. He was bleeding – from his nose, his ears. The left side of his tunic was soaked with blood.

The mage lay beside him, a young, pretty face staring sightlessly out of the cowl of her hood. She looked like the kind of girl he would have asked to dance. He laughed a little at the thought – at how harmless she looked, how innocent, how tempting it would have been, had they met in the street, just to let her go. How many blood mages had pled for his brother’s mercy? How many had promised never to do it again? She probably would have been the same. Carver probably would have let her go. He hummed a few bars of his favorite song.

The sound of shouting slowly registered to him again, and Carver tried to rouse himself. His legs felt weak, like his insides were made of gelatin, not bone. He had to use the altar to pry himself up.

“Here,” he croaked, his voice torn, rough. He tried again, louder. “In here!”

With their lanterns and shining armor, the templars arrived.

\--

“Here, now, make sure you drink all of it,” Todric said, handing him the mug. It was thick porcelain, chipped, its contents thick and brown as mother’s beef stew – some combination of mage potions, coffee, and whiskey that Carver was not feeling optimistic about actually putting into his body.

Carver’s injuries had mostly been superficial. The templars had taken him back to the Gallows, given him medical attention and a shower and a change of clothes, but it was going to take more than that to settle him. The darkness still hounded his mind. Everything still hurt.

Todric’s smile was understanding as he came around the desk to sit on the other side. “Trust me,” Todric said, and Carver tried not to scowl.

At least the drink was warm.

Carver drank, and the taste was worse than he had expected. Bitter and herby, the consistency thick as cream that had been left out in the sun. He gagged.

“The First Enchanter has a suppository version,” Todric offered.

“No,” Carver rasped, quickly. “No, this is great.”

The templar snorted a laugh, and looked away, and waited for him to finish. They were silent as Carver drank. Todric began to work on some paperwork, but Carver knew he was being watched all the same.

“I’m not possessed,” Carver said.

“I know,” Todric answered.

Even with the disgusting brew in his hands, he had to admit that the bright warm sun streaming through the windows was comforting. Carver didn’t really know how much time had passed. The blood mages were dead, and the surviving members of the gang arrested. There had been some argument over who had the rights to arrest them – Carver remembered catching sight of Aveline out on the street outside, arguing with Cullen, her face pale and her eyes furious. She’d tried to get Carver’s attention as he passed. He’d pretended he didn’t notice as he passed by.

The templars – the tunnel hadn’t been that long, a quarter of a mile, if even that. The cavern had been full of corpses, and contraband books, magical artifacts, spells lost for centuries. The templars had set the lot of it aflame after they left. Carver remembered the books screaming.

“Nasty business in there,” Todric said, conversationally, as if he were discussing the weather. “That really isn’t the kind of place we want bone-headed civilians throwing themselves, you know?”

“Whoops,” Carver said, dryly.

“Whoops indeed,” Todric agreed. He tossed down his pen and sat back in his seat, watching Carver as he sat, huddled beneath a scratchy wool blanket choking down the contents of the mug. Said contents were worse as they cooled, thicker, like bacon fat gone rancid on the stove. “What in the Maker’s name possessed you to go charging in that that?”

“I told you – that gang was my job.”

“Right, indeed you did. Always a lot to be said about unscrupulous refugees, taking jobs like that.”

“Keeps food on the table.”

“I’m just glad you didn’t come crawling out of that hole a hungry corpse.”

“Me too,” Carver said. He finished off the last of the mug, and placed it on Todric’s desk. He looked at him pointedly. “Whiskey,” he said, “Hold the other shit this time.” Todric laughed. He looked at the open office door to make sure no one was passing by, then took a bottle from the bottom drawer.

“This is just an emergency stash, you understand?” he asked. “For days like today.”

“Whatever.”

Todric poured Carver a generous serving, then took a long swig from the bottle himself before capping it and putting it back in its home. He kept his eyes on the door the entire while.

“I want payment,” Carver said. “There’s a bounty on blood mages. I killed one of them. Would have been three if you lot hadn’t interfered, so I want compensation for them, too.”

“You want to be paid for the mages our own men killed?”

“Didn’t ask you to interfere.”

Todric chuckled. He shook his head. “And I suppose you’ll be harassing the guard for a little something in your part taking out the gang, too?”

“Man’s got to eat somehow.”

“ _Fereldans_.”

Carver snorted. He drank. The burn warmed him all the way down.

“You’ve got to be crazy, charging in like that,” Todric said. “We’ve been after that maleficar for ages. She was a piece of work – desperate. Crazy. No regard for life. She killed three templars who went in before you.”

Carver vaguely remembered seeing the bodies. He puffed himself up a little. “So much for that revered templar training. I’ve got skills you can’t even dream of.”

“Bone-headed stubbornness, it seemed like.”

“You said yourself: I’m Fereldan.”

“That’s painfully apparent,” Todric said. He was silent for a beat, watching him. Carver met his eyes as he drank. Todric said, “Carver, have you ever thought about joining up?”

He almost choked on his drink. “The _templars_?”

Todric smiled, close-lipped, humble. He shrugged. “As you said, you seem to have a special talent for dealing with maleficarum. You need a job, if I understand the situation correctly, and we can always use people like you.”

“Hard-headed idiots who go charging at blood mages?”

“Surely next time a few silencing techniques might come in handy.” Todric smiled. He extended his hand. “What do you say?”

“You want me to join the bleeding templars?”

“I’m willing to put in a good word. What you did today – it deserves more than what they’re going to pay you in bounty.”

Todric was still waiting, his hand extended. Carver took another drink, and hardly felt the burn.

\--

They had come out into a large cavern, where tall stone columns supported the balcony of a viewing area dropping off into the unexplored deepness beyond. Far below, a lake waited – clear and still as glass. Veins of lyrium climbed the walls like the deep stretching roots of ancient trees, pulsing their blue light. Ahead, a long-forgotten paragon guarded a set of stairs leading into the next room.

“Darkspawn will be on us soon,” Anders warned. “A small troop.”

“We’ll give them a proper greeting,” Hawke said, already reaching to unhook his staff. The other mage slumped a little, leaning against a column.

“We’re never going to find the end of this mess,” Anders complained.

“Come on, Blondie, think happy thoughts,” Varric encouraged. He checked the settings on Bianca, tested her cocking ring, then pushed a new bolt home. They could hear the darkspawn up ahead – the scrape of their feet, the chatter of their communication. The stench of them had already started to fill the room. Varric wiped sweat from his brow. “Ale at the Hanged Man. Voluptuous dwarven maidens. A five-series book contract.”

“Those are your happy thoughts, not mine.”

“So? Who says you can’t borrow them for a while?”

“They come,” Fenris said, as the misshapen shapes of the darkspawn began to fill the doorway up ahead. Hawke nodded, and he stepped to the elf’s side.

“What are your happy thoughts, Hawke?” Varric asked. “Let’s give him some more ideas.”

The darkspawn began to charge the room, and Hawke didn’t immediately answer. He swung his staff, lighting sparking along his fingertips in preparation. As Anders had predicted, it wasn’t a large party - easily and quickly dispatched. The group had grown used to fighting them already, working out the little tricks that made the battle that much easier, ways to protect themselves from the tainted blood, as well as the ‘spawns’ more traditional weapons.

Fenris no longer suffered an adverse reaction to Hawke’s magic during combat. It helped when he stood nearby, where it would be easy for the elf to see him cast. He had never flinched away or compromised a fight over it, but Hawke had taken note of his discomfort. In the sometimes-limited space they had to fight in the Deep Roads, he did what he could to keep the elf comfortable.

“I am growing accustomed to the feel of your magic,” the elf agreed, when they discussed it. He seemed neither pleased nor displeased with the revelation, but merely watched Hawke, his head slightly tilted, his eyes large and bright in the dim lighting. “Take care you do not take advantage of the fact.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Hawke promised, and Fenris nodded as if he believed him.

Hawke struck the butt of his stave against the ground and released the lightning, hardly pausing to watch it arch between the darkspawn bodies before he began summoning his next spell.

“Dogs,” Hawke told Varric.

“That’s your happy thought?” Anders demanded. “I’m afraid I can’t relate!”

Hawke swung his staff. He gathered moisture from the cave walls, from the lake so far below, stretching his magic, feeling the pull. When he released it, ice arched, sharp and cruel, impaling two darkspawn who had grown too close.

“Knowing mother and Carver are safe on the surface.”

“Again, can’t relate. Bugger Carver.”

Hawke gave him an annoyed look. He waited, holding his next spell while Fenris darted in to finish off the two impaled spawn, his lyrium flashing, humming. He let his eyes scan the space, and released a fireball at a creature charging for Varric.

“How about flannel shirts?” Fenris suggested wryly, glancing over his shoulder at Hawke with something like a grin. Hawke couldn’t help glancing down at what he was currently wearing – the fabric so filthy it seemed to be a uniform color. It was stiff with mud and worse things.

“I miss the red one,” Hawke said.

Anders didn’t answer.

A second troop of darkspawn came charging through the door, and the conversation stopped while they concentrated on dealing with them.

“That bakery in Hightown,” Fenris suggested when it was over, as they caught their breath and scavenged the bodies for usable supplies. “That morning we went.”

Hawke chuckled. “The waitress was so afraid we’d skip out without paying.”

“Can’t relate,” Anders said again, his voice hard and annoyed.

Hawke straightened, and stretched, warmed by Fenris’s close-lipped smile. He said, “When we get back to the surface, I’ll treat everyone.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Fenris said.

Hawke nodded, and motioned to the stairs. “Let’s go.”


	33. Reconciliation

Carver Hawke had grown so used to Merrill ignoring him that when he knocked on her door and she actually opened it, he completely forgot what he’d been planning to say.

It was an odd, awkward moment that passed between them. Merrill stared at Carver, and Carver stared right back. The little Dalish looked tired and pale, and there were fresh cuts on her arms. Her dress was stained with dirt and other things, and her hair was tied up messily to keep it out of her face.

“You’re home!” Carver said, intelligently. She was a mess, but _Maker_ , it was good to see her. He could feel the smile stretching his face.

“Yes, I am,” Merrill agreed. “Goodbye, then,” and she took a step back and slammed the door in his face.

Carver stared at the door for several moments of dumbfounded shock, not comprehending what had just happened – waiting for Merrill to swing open the door, and giggle, and tell him she was teasing.

Finally, he lifted his hand and knocked again.

“Yes, hello, who is it?” Merrill called.

“It’s, ah…it’s still me.”

“Me? Me who?”

“Carver?”

“Oh! Oh, all right. No, thank you, then.”

“N – Merrill!” Carver tried the door handle, but it was locked. He pounded his fist on the door. “Merrill!”

“I only answered the first time because I thought you were the delivery boy,” she said. “Please go away.”

“I’m not – I’m not going away! I haven’t seen you in ages!”

“That’s generally what happens when somebody doesn’t want to see somebody,” she said. “They don’t.”

“Not want to - ? Merrill! I’m not going anywhere until you talk to me! Merrill?”

She didn’t answer.

Carver tried a little longer. He pounded on the door, and he shouted her name. He begged, he pleaded, he even resorted to threats – “If you don’t answer the door, you’ll never see me again!” he yelled. Behind her a young elven grandmother was walking her grandchildren. She stopped, stared at him, then quickly ushered the children away. “I’ll go away, and I’ll never come back!”

No answer was forthcoming from the little house. In defeat, Carver threw himself down on the ground, his back against that damned door, his head tilted back, skyward. It was rare for sunlight to penetrate the gloom of the foundry smoke that settled over all of Lowtown, but he thought he could make out a few bright rays through the leaves of the elves’ weird tree.

The door opened inwards, and Carver fell backwards into Merrill’s home.

“It occurs to me,” Merrill said, a little coldly, as she soot above him, “That if you stay out here dressed like that for much longer, the neighborhood will be bound to start thinking I’m a blood mage.”

“You are a blood mage,” Carver said. When she frowned at him, he winced, and scrambled quickly back to his feet.

“Best come in before I change my mind,” she said. “I’ll let you say your piece, then be on your way. That’s the best I can give you.”

“Yes,” Carver said. “Thank you. Yes.”

He felt too tall, ungainly as he followed Merrill through the dark, narrow little entrance hall. He was surprised to find her little sitting room in a state of unorganized chaos, rather than her usual tidy little kingdom. The floor was covered in pots and baskets and vials, each holding plants and powders and potions. A series of strange, sharp-looking instruments were laid out on a bit of silk like an altar.

In the corner, something tall and slender was covered with a sheet.

“Don’t look at that,” Merrill scolded. “That isn’t for you.”

“What kind of magic are you doing in here, Merrill?” Carver asked, thinking of the cuts on her arm, and the hidden chamber in the warehouse with all its hidden horrors. The maleficar there had had arms just as scarred and scabbed as Merrill.

“Is that an official inquiry?” she asked, archly, and he flushed, ashamed he would even think to question her. No matter how innocent and pretty that other mage had appeared – she wasn’t Merrill.

“No,” he said. “No. I know you aren’t – like that.”

She crossed her arms and she waited, expectant, and Carver tried not to stare at the series of fresh cuts on her skin. He gave a jerk when he realized she wasn’t going to offer him a chair or a drink.

“ _Maker_ , you _are_ mad at me, aren’t you?”

“Please, be about your business quickly. I’m very busy, as you can see.”

“Can I at least ask what it is I did?” Carver asked. “I don’t deserve to be treated this way.”

Merrill stared at him in some mixture of surprise and outrage. “Do you really believe that?” she asked, and Carver was at least smart enough to realize his answer had very well better not be yes.

“Is it the uniform?” he asked instead, approaching. He tried to take her hands and Merrill jerked them quickly away. “Merrill, you have to know I would never turn you in. I can do a lot of good with the templars – I can protect you!”

“Do you think that’s why I’m angry? Well, it certainly doesn’t help. Carver, your poor brother will be _heartbroken_ when he finds out.”

“I don’t care – I don’t regret it. In fact, I wish I’d thought of it a year ago, if only people weren’t so prejudiced against templars.”

“People prejudiced against _templars_?”

“If I’d joined up when we first got here, Leo would have never even needed that bloody expedition.”

“You really think your place in the templars is important enough that you’d be able to protect Hawke and all his friends all on your lonesome? And you, just being a recruit?”

“Well, if push came to shove, I could turn in Anders – take the pressure off.”

“Carver, that’s a terrible thing to say, even if you are only kidding!”

He wasn’t, but Merrill had sounded as if the very idea would make her cry, and so he kept it to himself. He took a breath.

“Merrill, why are you mad at me?” he asked. “Haven’t you missed me at all? There’s been so much I’ve wanted to tell you, so many times when I wanted to see you.”

“I suppose joining the templars has given you ample time to talk to a _silly girl_ , then?” she asked.

For a moment, Carver was confused.

Then he remembered. He groaned.

“You’re still mad about that?” he asked. “Maker’s balls, Merrill – you know I didn’t mean that!”

“Do I?” she asked.

“I was angry at Leo, not you!”

“But I’m still the one you hurt.”

Carver fell silent. Merrill looked at him steadily, with no intention of backing down.

Carver didn’t like it. He’d always been the kind to lash out when wounded – to hurt because he’d been hurt. The thought that Merrill had gotten it – that it hadn’t even occurred to him that he owed her an apology - !

“Merrill,” he said, “I – I don’t know what to say.”

“Most people start with ‘I’m sorry’ and work their way from there.”

“Yes – yes, of course I’m sorry! Merrill – I’m sorry! You didn’t deserve to be spoken to like that.”

“No,” she agreed. “I didn’t.”

Carver sat down, hard, at her little table. Merrill had even given him the chance to take it all back that day, and he’d been too angry and too dense to see it. No wonder she had been avoiding him! No wonder she was so angry!

“Merrill,” he said, “I’d do anything to make this up to you.”

It was a long time before she answered.

Carver looked up when she moved, crossing the room to sit beside him at the table. She didn’t reach for his hand.

“You’re a good boy, Carver Hawke. At least, I think you are,” she said. “But ig you want to be my friend, you’re going to have to start being much nicer to me.”

“I understand,” Carver said.

She regarded him a moment longer before she reached for his hand.

\--

Varric pounded on the door until his hands were raw and bloody. “Bartrand!”

“Keep pounding,” Anders said. “That will definitely work.”

Hawke shot the other mage a glare, his annoyance creeping across his shoulders, his jaw already aching from how tightly he held it. “You aren’t helping,” he said, his voice hard, hostile, and Anders, seated near the spot where they had found the blasted idol, merely shrugged.

“I wasn’t trying to,” he said. “If all our spells couldn’t open that door, nothing will. We’re trapped here. Forever.”

Hawke made an annoyed sound. The only other way out of the room led down deeper into the Deep Roads, where hordes of darkspawn waited.

Rerouting the expedition had cost them a week. Supplies had been holding surprisingly steady – but most of those were with the rest of the expedition team. On the other side of that door.

They were each carrying a little in their packs in case of emergencies, but at best it would last them a few days. Plunging further into the uncharted recesses of the Deep Roads could get them all hopelessly lost, whereas if they stayed there was always the chance one of the crew members might come back and open the door.

“It’s a shit chance,” Varric said, as if reading Hawke’s mind. He turned away from the door, eyes on his bloody hands. “If we stay here – even for a few days – that’s our supplies, gone. We’ll lose our chance to find another way. Shit, this hurts.”

“I’m not healing it,” Anders said. “You were dumb enough to keep doing it.”

Varric grunted, already in the process of unscrewing his flask. “I’ll enjoy wearing the reminder,” he said.

Hawke watched the dwarf clean the wound and shake out a handkerchief to wrap it in. Varric drank what was left in the flask, then tossed it away, empty. “This day just keeps getting better and better,” Varric said. “Shit.”

“Hawke could heal it,” Fenris suggested. Hawke had expected being trapped to rattle the fugitive elf, but between Varric’s fury and Anders’s despair, he seemed the calmest of them all, unconcerned with their questionable future. He stood with his back straight and his eyes cool, as if simply waiting for the rest of them to reach the conclusion he’d already drawn.

Looking at him made some of the tension in Hawke’s shoulders ease.

“Spoken like someone who’s never undergone the torment Hawke calls healing,” Varric said. “I think I’d rather lose the hand.”

“You jest,” Fenris said. He sounded pleased. “It’s good to keep your sense of humor down here.”

Anders shook his head. “No,” he said. “He’s right. Hawke really is that terrible.”

Fenris looked unconvinced, even when Hawke failed to protest their claims. Whether or not his friends thought he was a bad healer was the least of Hawke’s concerns.

“Varric, what are our chances that Bartrand might change his mind?”

“On a scale of one to ten, one being ‘not a chance’ and ten being ‘any moment now’?”

“Sure.”

“They don’t invent numbers that low.”

“You’re positive?”

“Look – never in my wildest dreams did I think that little nug licker would pull something like that. You want me to say for sure what he’ll do? I can’t. But I don’t see any reason for Bartrand to change his mind now – namely because if that door opens I’m putting a bolt right between his eyes.”

Hawke considered it. He nodded. He said, “We’re moving out.”

Anders jerked as if he’d struck him.

“Wait – what?” he asked, staring, then scrambling to his feet as Hawke passed.

“We find another way,” Hawke said.

\--

“I’m sorry,” Anders said, the first thing either of them had said to each other in hours. It was the first they’d been alone – the first Leo had allowed them to be alone – in over a week. He didn’t miss the way the big mage stiffened at the sound of his voice, the way he grew so carefully still, as if Anders were an animal who might forget he was there if he only took care not to make any sudden movements.

Varric and that elf were scouting ahead for clean water and anything remotely edible, and Anders couldn’t bear to pass up the opportunity to clear the air. As much as he hated watching Leo respond that way to him, he forced himself to push ahead.

“For arguing about leaving,” Anders said. “I’m not frightened. There are things when you go this far in the Deep Roads – grubs and broodmothers and – but I’m not frightened. But being trapped…I shut down. You’re doing your best for us. I know that. That’s what I admire about you.”

Leo was silent for a long while. He got the fire going – without magic, though Fenris wasn’t there to protest – and started on the bedrolls.

“I would have thought you might apologize for our last discussion,” Leo said at last, and only the fact his voice was mild, not hard, kept Anders’s temper from swelling in response. Leave it to Leopold fucking Hawke to overlook the significance of a proverbial olive branch when it had taken everything in Anders to offer it in the first place.

But Anders managed a calm and rational response. He said, “Here I thought I was the one owed an apology for that.”

“Did you?”

“You’re a good man, Hawke. You’ll come along to the plight of the mages one day. One way or another.”

Leo sat back on his heels and looked at Anders – not puffed full of rage, all tight lines and clenched jaw – but subdued, tired even.

“And to you, too, I suppose?” he asked, and Anders found himself warming pleasantly.

He said, “Well, I can hope.”

Leo sighed. “Anders,” he began.

“Don’t. Don’t do that, please. I want to be friends again. I’ll worry about convincing you I’m worth loving later.”

Leo frowned. “Anders,” he began again, and this time the blond waited, though he didn’t continue.

When the others returned, the discussion was long over. Leo paced the camp, setting wards, and even when Fenris moved to join him, dogging his side like a pale-headed, irritating shadow, Anders felt content with his small, stubborn kernel of hope.


	34. Desperate Times

It was a ludicrous notion, the thought that Fenris might find himself _happy_ within the labyrinthine confines of the Deep Roads, and yet he could think of no other word to describe the strange contentment that greeted him each time he rose from his bedroll. Miles of crushing rock waited above his head, separating him from the world above with placid patience. He hadn’t breathed fresh air in weeks, and monsters hounded their every step. Darkspawn and drakes and spiders and things he didn’t even know the name of. Every creature they encountered was thirsty for their deaths; every stale breath they drew had the very real chance of being their last, and the only question was the manner of death they would find, be it through violence or starvation or accident, and yet –

And yet Fenris felt more free than he had since the Fog Warriors. For the first time in years his steps were not hounded by those who would see him locked in chains, broken down and destroyed.

“I look forward to hearing how you beg, when Danarius begins stripping the flesh from your hide,” one of his pursuers had told him once, with a lusty leer and breath that stank like sour ale. He had been the one to do the begging, in the end. Fenris had liked killing that one.

The Deep Roads – it was an interesting revelation, to know that if death was inevitable, he had a preference for how it came. Darkspawn were just creatures, and Fenris was not afraid. In the meantime, he was free. It was good, and he was glad Hawke had asked him to come along. If he died, he would die free.

Death seemed more inevitable by the day.

Their stores were almost out, and they had cut back drastically on their rations. They were not starving yet, but hunger gnawed their bellies at every hour; there was no way to find satisfaction without completely depleting what little they had left. They had tried hunting what they could down here – nugs, mostly, but there had been an attempt at roast dragon steak that did not go well. Ever since the Thaig everything felt wrong, tainted and inedible.

Anders was faring the worst; his Grey Warden stamina demanding more of him than the rest of them. He already looked skeletal, there in the flickering darkness of unexplored caverns, as they hacked their way through all that came to kill them. Fenris bore the healer not even the smallest modicum of affection, and yet the growls of his belly kept him from sleep more often than not, and he found himself almost pitying the pain it must have caused him.

Varric was a little better. His anger at his brother kept him going, moving, fighting. He would find a way out, even if the rest of them fell, if only to wreak vengeance on Bartrand. Fenris was certain of it. Several days of stubble had him looking slowly more and more dwarfish. Fenris asked him, idly, if he would braid his new beard when it finished coming in. Varric had laughed, and made a rude gesture.

Hawke –

It felt wrong, Fenris’s strange sense of contentment, his acceptance of their lot, when Hawke was taking it all so hard. It was his fault they were down here. What happened to them was his responsibility. That was how he saw it, in any case. It was concerning, the weight their location brought to Hawke’s shoulders. He bore their broad expanse as if the burden of his decisions was a real and physical thing. Every day those shoulders grew heavier, that brow darker. Hawke spoke less and less with each hour that passed, his jaw set so hard it could have been carved from granite. It must have ached. He had told Fenris how relieved he was that he had insisted Carver stay on the surface – what he hadn’t bothered to share was how he felt bringing the others had surely doomed them. Fenris saw it anyway.

“Chicken stew,” Varric said. “One of the girls at the Hanged Man makes it in the winter, but I’ll ask her to make an exception for a returning hero. With lots of strips of chicken and fresh sweet corn…”

“I don’t like this game,” Anders complained.

“You don’t want to think about what you’ll eat when you get home?”

“We aren’t getting home.”

“Apple tarts,” Fenris volunteered. He kept his voice light. “From the bakery in Hightown. Hawke did promise to treat.”

It didn’t earn the smile he had hoped for, but at least Hawke looked at him, held his gaze for a long and steady moment.

Fenris said, “Don’t think I’ll let you out of it.”

Hawke said, softly, “All right.”

The chamber they were in was one of the oldest yet, so deep underground that the pressure was all wrong and their ears kept popping. The carved walls were overrun with long ropes of lyrium, looping, vinelike and red and pulsing around pillars and over long-rotted doors like arteries in a body. A foggy mist hung damply around their ankles.

“What about you, Big Guy?” Varric asked. “First thing you want to eat when we reach the surface?”

Hawke opened his mouth, but before he could answer a rumbling sound filled the halls. The walls seemed to shake, and the air around them grew thicker.

Shadows began to pool on the ground. Inky, they seemed to absorb all the light, to draw in the soft glow of mage lights and lava and lyrium, to consume and destroy it. Slowly they rose, taking shape and form from nothing, and Fenris cursed.

“Shades,” he warned, even as he drew his blade. Hunger was making them all a bit slower. Every battle they fought brought a new flirtation with death. His sword felt heavy in his hands.

Hawke was the first to strike. Fenris could see it in him – the set of his jaw in the light of the wash of fire he summoned, the way he stepped forward, to the front, as if to guard them all. Hawke would take it all unto himself if he could. He had brought them down here. He was responsible for them. He would defend them.

Fenris wouldn’t let him do it alone.

Broken stones cut as his feet as he charged forward. His muscles protested the fight from the very first swing. His sword struck, and struck again. He darted, he danced. He had been made to fight on through whatever pain he was feeling – created to endure.

Fenris could feel Hawke at his back, could feel the pressure of his spells against his lyrium, the way they itched each time he cast. They burned when he ignited them, sent the familiar flash of pain searing its way up his spine as his glow lit the caverns. The air burned his lungs. The ground shook below them.

And then everything – stopped.

“Enough.”

The fight had not gone on long, but they were panting and exhausted, each at the end of his reserves, when the creature began to take form – a thing of living rock, with a skull-like head and a molten core. The shades stopped at its word, lined themselves up, obedient and still. It regarded the four of them through a single eye socket that blazed with fire.

“You have proven your mettle,” it said. “I would not see these creatures harmed without need.”

Hawke’s breathing was ragged, and for just a moment it seemed he had to use his staff to support himself. With poorly-concealed effort he pushed himself up, drew himself to full height. Those shoulders of his squared as he snarled, “We’re defending ourselves! Keep your distance.”

The thing flared gold and almost blinding to look at as it considered this response. The light that made up its core pulsed thoughtfully. It’s voice was courteous, almost gentle when it spoke, and Fenris felt the hairs on his arms stand on end. It said, “They will not assault you further. Not without my permission.”

Varric still held Bianca. He looked from the creature, to Hawke, then back to the creature. “What are these things?” he wondered, out of the corner of his mouth, as if thinking the thing would not hear. “They seem like rock wraiths, but…”

The creature said, “They hunger. The profane have lingered in this place for ages beyond memory, feeding on the magic stones until the need is all they know.”

Is seemed said stones hummed around them at those words, resonant, persistent, filling their ears. Hawke shook his head and fixed his glare on the creature.

“They eat the lyrium,” he said, and a part of Fenris wondered if he was the reason they had been attacked – if even down here he was being hunted, after all.

The creature didn’t directly answer Hawke’s guess, either to confirm or deny its validity. It said, “I am not as they are. I am a visitor.”

“No, you’re a demon,” Hawke said. “Feeding on their hunger. I can sense it.”

“I would not see my feast end,” the creature agreed. Something like a breeze stirred the air around them, and for just a moment Fenris felt stregenthened, renewed – a taste of a promise of the creature’s power. “I sense your desire,” it said. “You seek to leave this place, but you will need my aid to do so.”

And there it was. Fenris stared at Hawke’s back, strung tight with tension. His hands, white-knuckled against his stave, his head bowed. He thought of their desperation, their dwindling food supplies, the endless maze of tunnels filled with things that wanted them dead.

He thought of Hawke, and how he blamed himself for their situation. How he took sole responsibility for bringing them all down here, where they could so easily end their lives. Here was the opportunity for an easy way out, as all mages always sought. It gave him a pang, knowing what he would hear. Somehow, in the short time he had known him, he had come to trust Hawke. The thought of the man disappointing him felt shattering, terrible. That Hawke would make this decision, this compromise on his principles solely for the sake of others and not for personal greed meant little. Something in Fenris twisted and hurt, even as he told himself that everyone had their breaking point. Fenris knew. Everyone –

Hawke’s voice was steel. He said, “We kill them all, and we find our own way out.”

“Most unwise,” the demon answered.

\--

Somehow, they defeated it. The battle was a blur. Somehow they found their victory, and in the aftermath, exhausted and bloody and starving, they pushed themselves up, and they moved on.

They found something like a crypt or a vault, not a far way away, and in it they were forced to fight again. A massive rock wraith far larger than the form the demon had held, and more powerful too.

Perhaps it was guilt that made Fenris push himself just that little bit farther. The knowledge that he had doubted Hawke, even for an instant. Hawke, who had yet to give him reason to doubt him – who stuck to his principles even when he knew doing so would only hurt him, make things more difficult, or painful, or lonesome. Hawke, who bore no interest in abusing his power for personal gain, who held himself in such rigid control, and acted under such a strict code of honor.

Anyone else might have taken that deal. But Hawke was unlike any man Fenris had known.

Something lit them, this battle; Fenris was not the only one who fought as if the last week had not happened, as if he were well rested and well fed and full of energy and strength. They pushed themselves, as if this were the last thing that mattered, as if they could just defeat this thing, everything would work out. Hawke would get them out, or he would die trying. They could not fail to do less than him.

When it was over, the creature crumpled to dust, Hawke was the first to fall. He sank down on his haunches, staff in his hands, and then he threw himself backwards against the stone with something like a laugh. His big chest heaved with exhaustion. There was sweat on his brow. Fenris watched him, as he slowly sank down nearby – sitting, sword across his knees. When they met each other’s eyes, they both laughed. Hawke a little wildly, as if he could not believe what they had done.

Varric propped Bianca up gently against a wall, and removed his jacket, tossing it over her as he stretched and worked his arms. He paced, slowly moving around the chamber. “I thought rock wraiths are supposed to be dwarven legends,” he said. “They aren’t supposed to be real!”

Anders snorted at that. He had sat down atop a fallen pillar, and had taken his greasy hair out of its tie, shaking it out and putting it back up. He kept sneaking looks at Hawke that the larger mage didn’t notice, but Fenris most definitely did.

Hawke, lying on the ground, rubbed his big hands across his face. He said, “It’s not very real now.”

“Suppose it doesn’t matter,” Varric agreed. He had come to a stop, halfway across the chamber. He waved Hawke’s way, as if to pull him over. “Look what it was guarding!”

Hawke pulled his hands from his face, and he looked at Fenris. Fenris only shrugged. With the help of his stave and a lot of moaning and cursing, Hawke pushed his way to his feet. He was limping a little as he moved to join Varric. After a moment, Fenris rose and followed.

Piles of treasure greeted him, secreted away in a little room off the central chamber. Hawke stood with his hands on his hips, staring at it as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. His expression was wry and tired, but something like humor tugged at his stern lips.

“No one ever said the Maker didn’t have a sense of humor,” Varric muttered.

Hawke shook his head. He said, “Let’s just see if there’s something that can help us get out of here,” he said. “We can count it all later.”


	35. Surface

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very short chapter, but at least it's a fast one?

In the end, they had to heave themselves up, crawling, grasping, rebirthed from a hole in the tunnel’s ceiling only Hawke and Anders came close to being able to reach, the way ahead blocked by yet another cave-in.

Anders was the first out, under the assumption his magic would prove the most useful should the surface provide unexpected dangers. It had been that kind of trip. Hawke boosted the healer, and watched, tense, as he vanished into the blinding sunlight. Their first hint of fresh air stirred his hair.

“We’re good!” Anders called, laughing, unbelieving. “ _Maker_ , it feels good just to be out!”

“Put me on your shoulders, Hawke, and I’ll hand up the treasure,” Varric suggested.

“You’re sure?” Hawke asked. The dwarf did not like being picked up.

“Sure,” Varric said. “Provided no one ever tells anyone this happened.”

“I make no promises,” Fenris swore.

Varric said, “I know where you live, elf.”

It took some maneuvering, getting the dwarf up onto Hawke’s shoulders. When he was steady, Fenris passed him the valuables they’d taken from the vault, and Varric handed them up to Anders on the surface. They’d fit much of it into their mostly-empty supply bags, but for what wouldn’t fit they had cobbled together makeshift bags out of scraps torn from filthy clothing. It seemed unreal that they were walking away with so much, after all that had befallen their journey – not just gold and gemstones, but trinkets, valuables from a civilization long forgotten. They glittered in the bright sun before disappearing through the hole.

“That’s everything,” Varric said. “Andraste’s tits, will you get me out of here now, Blondie?”

That proved more challenging. Dwarves tended to be heavy, and upper body strength was not Anders’s forte. In the end, Varric stood on Hawke’s shoulders, putting half of him outside the hole, and as he scrabled and struggled to pull himself out, Anders got hold of his belt, and somehow they managed.

Then Fenris and Hawke were alone.

It was strange, the sense of reluctance Fenris felt wash over him. The weeks spent free of Danarius’s agents, sitting comfortably with Hawke in the darkness, talking, just talking, companionable and content, had reached their end. He had never had that before, and now it was over.

Hawke extended his hand. “Come on. I’ll boost you up.”

Fenris hadn’t considered the possibility that the mage would need to touch him to get him out. Strange that he should trust the man as much as he did, yet drag his feet now. After all these years, he still expected the slightest brush to send his marks searing into agony. It wouldn’t. They only really hurt when he activated them – but he remembered too well the days when they had.

Hawke knelt, his hands cupped, and Fenris made himself step forward. He placed his foot carefully in the mage’s large palm, braced himself, tentatively, with a hand on his broad shoulder. Hawke hoisted him easily, as if he weighed nothing, and as Fenris breached the opening Varric and Anders were there, grabbing his arms. For a moment he struggled, pulling himself up. The others pulled. Below, one of Hawke’s hands pushed. Then he was free.

The surface air was pure and sweet, stirring his hair, filling his lungs. Fenris turned without rising, reaching forward to grasp Hawke’s reaching hand, and help pull him safely to freedom.

 --

They struck camp along the coast, and gratefully washed off weeks of filth with a swim in the ocean – clothes and all. The others were so happy to be out, they laughed and splashed at each other and played, even Hawke. The salty ocean water made his clothes cling to his muscular frame when he emerged, smiling, hair in his eyes, looking more a farmboy in the fading light than he ever had.

They caught fish, and cooked them over an open flame, and gorged themselves, late into the night.

“I’ve never eaten so much in my life,” Anders said, when Hawke plied him with more fish, but he took it anyway, and seemed pleased that whatever tension that had lingered between them seemed broken by the group’s shared elation at being on the surface again.

Fenris felt warm and content, relatively clean, full, and pleasantly tired. He dozed a little by the fire, until they began to see to the business of splitting up their earnings. Like the days of their little odd jobs around the city, Hawke was both stern and fair with the cuts. There was a bit of an argument when they started; Hawke wanted t o split the shares evenly, while Varric insisted the two of them received larger cuts for being the ones to organize the whole mess. Hawke did not take losing the argument gracefully, but in the end, he did lose.

“It might take a while to sell some of the more unusual items,” Varric said, “At least, for what they’re really worth. But I’ve got a guy. Anyway, you should be set now, Hawke. Or should I say ‘my lord’?”

“Do it and I’ll drown you,” Hawke glowered.

“I suppose you’ll be moving on now, Fenris?” Anders asked, too casually, picking at the last of the fish. The question surprised Fenris, had him sitting up a little, looking around the group. He’d dozed off again, and felt a moment of confusion. Anders smiled. “The expedition was what you were hanging around for, wasn’t it? You’ve more than paid back Hawke for his help.”

“I – suppose I have,” Fenris agreed. He looked at Hawke, but the big mage wasn’t looking at him.

Anders said, “With your share, you can more than afford to get as far from Tevinter as possible. Disappear, for good.”

“And spend the rest of his life wondering when Danarius will catch up with him?” Hawke asked, solemn, voice hard, frowning at the fire.

“Isn’t that what he’s doing now?” Anders countered. “You know he knows where you are. I’d imagine that makes it hard to sleep at night. I’ve got experience running, myself, you know. Anyway, all I mean is that there’s no reason for you to keep hanging around Hawke now. You could go anywhere, do anything. Kirkwall’s a shithole.”

“Watch how you talk about my shithole,” Varric said, trying to lighten the mood.

“I just don’t understand why you would want to stay here. You don’t owe Hawke anything. He doesn’t need you anymore. Everyone else – we have reasons to be here. I have my clinic. Varric lives here. Merrill and Isabela are kind of stuck here. Aveline’s guard captain. You don’t have anything.”

“I won’t be chased to the corners of the map,” Fenris said, more heatedly than he meant to. Hawke had not spoken up when Anders said he didn’t need him. Somehow, that bothered him. He said, “Danarius will come for me here, and I will be prepared to face him. Regardless of whether or not Hawke intends to continue our association.”

“And after that?” Anders pressed. “Will you leave?”

Hawke still would not look at him. “I – don’t know,” Fenris said, and silence fell for several moments.

“Look, no one needs to make any life altering plans tonight, right? And clearly this conversation’s making the Big Guy uncomfortable – and me too, if you really want to know,” Varric said at last. “Maybe we should all just, uh, get some rest. It’s a long walk back to Kirkwall tomorrow.”

\--

“It’s – your decision.”

Hawke had to push the words out. They felt unwieldly, awkward, catching in his mouth. When the elf beside him didn’t answer, he felt certain he’d misstepped.

It was the next day. They’d woken early, having slept better on the surface with full bellies than they ever had managed starving in the Deep Roads with Darkspawn around every corner. The air still seemed impossibly sweet, the sun incredibly bright. Hawke felt lighter, without the weight of miles of rock above him, but there was still the matter brought up last night. Troubling him, nagging at his mind.

When several moments passed without Fenris answering, Hawke forced himself to venture again.

“Whether or not we continue our…association.” Maker but he suddenly hated that word.

“Is it?” Fenris asked, detached, uninterested. He didn’t look at Hawke.

They had fallen back behind the others. Kirkwall was growing closer on the horizon; Hawke could see the smoke from the foundry billowing into the air. Hawke struggled to find his words, wishing he was a more eloquent man.

“Our business is concluded,” he said, “And I wouldn’t obligate you – not just you, any of you – to continue on as we have if you had other plans.”

“I see,” Fenris said, and then, after a moment, “I suppose it would prove inconvenient for a nobleman to associate himself with such a menagerie of outcasts.”

That word again. Hawke set his jaw, and he took a deep breath. “No,” he said, as patiently as he could. Still, his voice came out hard. “Nobleman or no, he would be a fool to walk away from his friends, wouldn’t he?”

“Is that what we are?” Fenris asked. He sounded amused, but when Hawke glanced at him, his expression was one of surprise.

“Andraste’s ass,” Hawke said. “After everything we – aren’t we?”

“Is that what you would like?”

“Isn’t that what I’m trying to say?”

“I’m afraid I require it said more explicitly.”

Hawke frowned at him. Fenris frowned back. Hawke pressed his lips into a thin line. He worked his jaw for a moment.

“We’re friends,” he said.

“All right, then.”

“And I don’t see a need for all this to change that.”

“I understand.”

“Regardless of if mother succeeds in restoring our name.”

“Fine.”

“Fenris - !”

A smile tugged at the elf’s lips, one corner of his mouth lifting higher than the other.

“We’re friends,” the elf agreed.

Ahead, the others finally realized how far behind they had fallen and stopped. Varric turned to wait, expectantly. “You two coming, or not?”

 


	36. Epilogue

They had been back in Kirkwall for all of a week before Anders managed to work up the nerve to go see Hawke.

At first, he told himself he was staying away to give Hawke time – time to settle in, to catch up with his family. Time for Hawke to settle whatever lingering tension or animosity had followed their spat in the Deep Roads, maybe even time for Hawke to miss him. He hadn’t anticipated that it would take very long. For the first few days, in fact, Anders had greeted each new arrival to the clinic with anticipation, expecting that at any moment he might look up and find the doors filled with the other mage’s broad shoulders. The third day, he told him himself _Hawke_ was the one giving _Anders_ the time to settle in. The clinic had been unmanned for weeks, but illness and injury did not take a holiday. There was more than enough to do.

By the fifth day, Anders began to wonder if he was the one being phased out. His words to Fenris after leaving the Deep Roads seemed to taunt and mock him now. He wondered at his blind assumption that Hawke would still have a use for him, would still want him around. Before, Hawke had needed him because he had been a warden. Anders had had maps, he could sense darkspawn, and his healing abilities far surpassed everything Hawke was capable of. Anders had been _useful_.

All of that was over now – and Hawke hadn’t exactly been pleased with him in those final days.

Anders felt sure that _Leo_ , the sensitive farm boy, would have come to see him now. Leo saw his worth beyond his uses. Leo was his friend. Perhaps, one day, Leo could be more. But _Hawke_ , Hawke the hard, Hawke the humorless, Hawke the asshole – Hawke, however…

In the end, necessity outweighed his pride.

By the end of the first week after their return to the surface, Anders’s share of the earnings from the Deep Road was gone – flittered away between the clinic and the beginnings of the Mage Underground. Anders had no reason to think that Hawke would continue to do his particular work around the city, now that he was titled, but the money from those jobs had helped keep Anders alive over the past year, and he couldn’t deny the need for a steady income. He couldn’t go back to relying on donations alone.

Besides – If Leopold Fucking Hawke wanted Anders out of his life, he could say it to his face.

Anders vacillated between moods as he made his way up to Lowtown. Defiance and insecurity and fear and want. Hunger gnawed at his belly, and for a moment he distracted himself trying to remember when he’d eaten. He’d yet to gain back the weight he’d lost underground. It hadn’t seemed important – not in comparison with other the other places his money could be of use. Hawke would probably tell him he needed to have planned better. If Hawke spoke to him at all.

It was an overly warm day, and the smoke from the foundry was thick, blotting the sun and making the air difficult to breathe. Street corner whores and urchins both seemed lethargic and grey and dull. The Hanged Man was quiet as he passed. The city guards slouched at their posts.

Compared to the sluggish lassitude that seemed to have overtaken the district, the noise that came from Gamlen’s house was downright startling – the sound of hammering, of construction. When Anders knocked, there was no answer at the door, and it was firmly locked. He went instead around to the side of the little house, where a once-broken but seemingly recently repaired gate led into a scrap of what might have once intended to be a garden, but was now a square of brown dirt. Anders could see where sections of the fence had been patched, the back shudders painted and repaired. Someone had put in stakes and a garden border, and the dirt was disturbed and damp, as if something had been planted. Even the little well Gamlen shared with his neighbors seemed to have seen some improvements made to it in the form of a new cover and more stable structure.

A ladder led up to the roof, as if the sound of hammering were not enough of a clue as to Hawke’s whereabouts. Anders steeled himself, and then he climbed.

The ladder scraped against the roof as he climbed, and when Hawke paused in his work, he must have heard him. Breaching the edge of the roof, Anders watched the other mage as he sat back on his heels, wiping a forearm across his sweaty brow. His hair was damp with perspiration, sticking up in odd directions, and the sleeveless undershirt he wore clung to his body. His skin was flush from exertion. His discarded green flannel hung off an edge of the crooked chimney. Anders could see now the boxes of nails and fresh roof tiles. As Hawke pulled up old or damaged tiles, he seemed to be tossing them onto a tarp to be dragged down later. Anders clung to the ladder, and tried not to forget himself under the heat, the overwhelming wave of feelings Hawke stirred up in him. He tried to decide if he wanted to climb further, or flee while he still had the chance.

“That was fast,” Hawke said, glancing back. “You must have had luck.”

Anders saw the pause when the other man realized he wasn’t whoever it was he thought he’d been talking to, but he didn’t see any other change in expression. Hawke looked stern, like he always did. His beard was a little shaggier than usual, less well kept. His voice had held that familiar edge, as if something was bothering him.

“Anders,” he said.

“That’s what it says in my underwear.”

The joke didn’t bring even the slightest hint of a smile. Hawke said, “I thought you were Fenris.”

“Afraid not.” Anders worked to clamp down on the green taste of jealousy. He thought of the changes he’d seen in the yard, the work already completed on the roof. Hawke’s hand on the hammer had bruised and scabbed knuckles. “You’ve – been hard at work I see.”

Hawke grunted and turned back to his task, prying up old rotting roof tiles with the edge of the hammer. “Just seeing to a few things before mother and I leave,” he said, in that hard voice, the one that meant there was more going on than just that and Hawke was not happy.

“You – gardened?”

“Merrill thought I should thank Gamlen with some begonias.”

“And fixed the fence.”

“Aveline thought we should make the place more secure.”

“ – and Fenris is helping with the roof.” Anders wondered if Varric and Isabela had been by as well, and what they might have contributed. Booze and running commentary, maybe. Had Hawke worked inside the house, as well? He watched Hawke tugging on a particularly stubborn piece of roof – watched the muscle that worked in his jaw, and the set to his shoulders, watched his jerky, impatient movements. “What’s wrong?” Anders asked.

The question seemed to surprise Hawke. He glanced at him again, and after a moment settled back on his backside, examining, then tossing away the wooden tile. He wiped sweat from his brow once again. His chest heaved with each breath.

“You want to know – what’s wrong?”

“Well, you don’t have to sound so surprised. Clearly you’re not up here _celebrating_.”

Hawke grimaced, his jaw still set. He said, “Get off the ladder. Up or down, make your decision.”

“Do you – mind the company?” Anders asked. “I’m not Fenris.” He couldn’t help the bitter addition, though it earned him a look of exasperation.

“Don’t be an ass.”

Anders expected Hawke, annoyed, to return to his work. Instead, the big man merely watched him. Anders chewed his lip for a second, and then he made his decision. Unsteadily, Anders climbed the rest of the way up onto the roof.

Hawke planted the box of nails in his hands with a gruff, “Make yourself useful,” and got back to work.

They were silent for a time. Hawke pulled up rotting tiles, and replaced them with new ones. Anders handed him the nails. Even through the foundry haze on the horizon, there was no escape from the sun’s oppressive heat. Anders could feel his skin beginning to cook. The back of Hawke’s neck was red.

“You know, this would go a lot faster if you used magic,” Anders suggested once, only to be ignored.

Hawke seemed disappointed when the job was done, his stash of new tiles depleted, his nails almost gone. He tossed the tarp of old tiles to the ground with a restrained kind of violence, and swung down, descending the ladder. Anders followed when Hawke stalked across the yard to pull up a bucket from Gamlen’s little well, and watched in silence as he threw the water over his head. Hawke shook it off like a dog, and offered Anders the bucked, already looking around the yard as if impatient for something else to do.

“Hawke,” Anders said.

Hawke said, tightly, “Not now.”

“Hold your applause; the cavalry has arrived.”

Anders jerked at the sound of Varric’s voice, and pulled his eyes from Hawke in time to watch the dwarf let himself into the yard, followed by Isabela and Fenris. Fenris carried a cask of ale, Isabela a basket of food. Varric seemed only to be bearing himself.

“Came back with a bit more than I expected,” Hawke said, a little strained.

Fenris answered, “I tried to lose them. I regret to inform you I failed.”

“That was nasty of you anyway,” Isabela said.

Varric moved ahead of the others to open the back door, holding it for them. “It’s time for you to take a break, anyway. On my insistence. Daisy went to fetch Aveline, and you already collected Blondie, somehow. It’s time for a nice, hearty lunch.”

“I don’t have time for lunch,” Hawke ground out.

Varric made a sweeping gesture. “Hawke,” he said. “Clearly none of this is working. Stop being an ass. Take it from me: it’s time to get drunk.”

\--

It was too loud, all of them crammed into Gamlen’s small kitchen, and a part of Hawke had to wonder when this sort of thing had become normal – or, at least, not so very surprising. He couldn’t recall another time when it had been so damned difficult just to get a little time to himself. Used to be, people were happy to leave him to his own devices.

Merrill had produced a table cloth from somewhere, and insisted on a jar of weeds as a centerpiece. Aveline found glasses and plates for them all, even if the set was chipped and stained. It was too loud, and too cramped, and Hawke’s hands didn’t want to be still. He was worried about what they might get up to, if he didn’t get them back to work.

“It’s that little son of a bitch, Junior,” Hawke could hear Varric explaining to the bewildered Anders, though to his credit the dwarf was making an effort to keep his voice down. Fenris helped serve up the food – bread and cheese and cold ham from the Hanged Man – while Aveline poured the ale. Hawke tried to tune out Varric’s words, but he knew what they would be. _Carver joined the templars._

“It looks like the flowers are going to grow in beautifully!” Merrill declared, as she came back in from checking them. The repairs had started because Hawke had punched a hole in Gamlen’s wall. They had continued because he would rather punch a hole in Carver’s face. Templar. _Carver joined the templars._ The repairs, once started, were difficult to stop. He’d fixed the creaky floor in the main room, and the missing rung on the bunk beds. He’d repainted Gamlen’s bedroom, and replaced the windows. He’d insulated the entire attic. Hawke had been working like a madman, afraid of what would happen if he wasn’t busy, if he had time to think, if his hands were still for too long. Most of the week of a blur of work and fury. He couldn’t remember which of his friends had started helping him first. Aveline or Varric. Fenris had spent a lot of time helping him. He knew it seemed he couldn’t turn a corner without finding the elf there, waiting to assist. Their shared silence suited him just fine.

“That’s just what Gamlen needs, some Blighted flowers,” Hawke complained, but Merrill didn’t lose her smile.

“We’ll just have to make sure he knows how to water them,” she said, brightly. “It’ll be a nice spot of color. Lowtown needs more pretty things in it, don’t you think?”

“Think of the garden parties he’ll host,” Fenris said, with dry amusement. “His debtors will undoubtedly be impressed, before they break his kneecaps.”

“You know,” Varric said, “No one ever sends flowers to debt collectors.”

“Oh, they should!” Merrill decided.

Anders took the chair beside Hawke before anyone else could. Hawke avoided his eyes, avoided the reality of the sympathy he would see there. He wasn’t ready for sympathy. He wanted to be angry a little longer.

“Now that’s enough of the attitude, Hawke,” Aveline said, as if she knew what he was thinking. The room grew suddenly, unbearably silent. Aveline didn’t appear to notice. She put an ale in front of him with enough force that some sloshed over the side of the glass, and forced his hand emphatically around the handle. “You’re going to drink this, Leopold Hawke, and you’re going to get roaringly drunk. You’re going to wake up in the morning with the worst headache of your life, and if you still want to fight someone then, you’ll fight me.”

In the sudden quiet, Hawke found himself looking around the kitchen. He half expected the others to start volunteering themselves, as well, though Merrill only giggled. Varric propped his feet up on the table, and lifted his brows significantly. Fenris snickered into his drink.

“Is that an order?” Hawke asked at last.

Aveline said, “You’re damned right it is.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Endings are always the hardest things. I don't know how much of an epilogue this makes, but I'm not really sure how much of a plot this fic had anyway, being that it was, simply, a retelling of a single act. A lot of things got away from me. There are a lot of things I would like to have expanded more on, taken even more slowly, made more cohesive, explored in more detail. I suppose that's why I write so many drabbles.
> 
> My thanks and love and affection for anyone who made it through this whole thing. I hope you had fun. I appreciate the chance to get to explore Leo in this kind of detail, to try to let you get to know him the way that I do. I would like to write more stories like this, for the rest of the game, but I haven't decided how yet - whether I want to continue to take it act by act, or in smaller chunks. If I want to focus more on things you don't see in the game, or continue to line things up. I guess time will tell.

**Author's Note:**

> KaerWrites.tumblr.com


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